Good Enough

Part one

Albion Cooperative, Enniskillen Transit Station, August 3rd, 21:03 League Standard Time (LST), 2140.

Lazlo was the third best operator in the Symposium. With over five hundred contractors employed throughout the one hundred and seventy settled colonies, third amongst so many should have been reason to feel pride.

But not Lazlo.

Third best meant two reasons for improvement. Third best meant not quite good enough to be number one. Third best meant Lazlo couldn’t tell his foster daughter just how good he was at his job.

Four days earlier he had joined a gym class on Enniskillen transit station, located deep within a nebula that covered the stars in shades of Amethyst, Magenta and Violet. Within an uncreative sports hall, the men and women of the Terran League military worked themselves in jog pants and service vests: green for Army, grey for Marines, maroon for Communications and black for Air Corps. Dotted amongst them were those on the civilian staff who liked to take part- the ageing owner of the ground floor café, an Italian woman from a beauty shop on the first gantry, and a cook from the English restaurant.

No one paid any attention to the man in the corner. Lazlo had just turned fifty but despite his age, displayed a body hardened from exercise and scarred by life. He never gave up, never quit, and pushed himself harder than anyone else in the room. Steel blond hair cut short and a two day growth framed a face well-lived, dominated by quiet green eyes that sometimes failed to hide his remorse. Some thought he was from a ship passing through. Others thought he was someone’s older relative. No-one could guess they were sharing the class with one of the most dangerous men they would ever meet.

On his fourth day, in the second half of the evening lesson the trainer told them to find a partner. It seemed an accident when Lazlo paired up with Justin Carl, a handsome Naval Lieutenant in a navy blue vest. They worked well, pushed each other to the limit, and as men often do in such circumstances, they bonded.

After the lesson ended Lazlo sat in the men’s changing room, delaying his shower until most of the others had left. Eventually, Justin Carl entered and saw Lazlo heading into the wet room. Justin liked this older man who wore his age well and followed him to share a joke about the session they had endured. They talked, showered, and when they were the only two in the room Lazlo accidentally knocked the soap onto the floor. As Justin helpfully bent to pick it up, Lazlo flipped Carl onto his back and stamped down on his heart, stopping it dead.

The inquest was quick. Lazlo described how Justin Carl slipped, fell, and there was not a thing he could do to save him. The marks left by the CPR were apparent and the first witnesses on the scene confirmed that Lazlo screamed himself hoarse as he tried to save the Lieutenant. No one suspected foul play, bothered to check his bags, or query the scratch under Justin’s hairline where Lazlo had taken a genetic sample. Seemingly distraught at failing to save a life, Lazlo took his leave and returned to his ship.

The Lydia’s smile was a battered fighter craft with room for four and a small cargo hold. Painted in shades of sand and coal, the flat bottomed fighter hovered on anti-grav engines in a docking bay and, unimpeded by security, Lazlo climbed aboard, locked the door, and dispensed with some, but not all of his guilt.

“Good afternoon, Lazlo” said a voice at his entry; soft, feminine, and alluring, but a little too much like the memory of the woman who gave her name to the ship. A twinge of regret was quickly buried. Lazlo wanted to feel something other than pain, but no experience was good enough so he buried his wishes within a well of neglect and hid behind the lie that he was a professional.

“Good afternoon, Lydia” he answered, settling into his work station and addressing the camera, “Prepare a packet transmission to Symposium, please.”

Lydia wired the call through a secure line on the station comms and announced he was ready to begin transmitting. A tray emerged from the panel and Lazlo deposited the genetic sample for scan as he typed quickly- “Contract number 1134533- expedient delivery confirmed. Proof of contract enclosed.”

Lydia scanned the genetic sample and transmitted the message as Lazlo moved forwards to the cockpit and creaked into the pilot’s chair. He preferred Lydia’s company to any organic- she was methodical, efficient, and pandered to his considerable ego. He had once worked in Law Enforcement on Earth. The former head of a SWAT team, Lazlo was as proficient in weapons as he was in gathering evidence. With experience in undercover work, CSI, investigation and the court process, he was destined for great things until his fall.

An impenetrable new crime syndicate had moved into New York but Lazlo someone he could help from the inside: a woman highly regarded yet controlled by the ruling family, Lydia Duncan saw Lazlo as an escape from the desperate life she led. They didn’t mean to fall in love, they knew better than to care, but whilst he turned her with promises of freedom, their emotions spiralled until the only thought they had was for each other. Over a three year investigation they became so close that despite their caution, information leaked and the syndicate found the traitor in their midst. Lazlo had a choice- he could save Lydia, or her young daughter Katheryn. Unfortunately for Lazlo, Lydia made the choice for him.

When the syndicate executed her, Lazlo lost control. Pursuing all avenues within and beyond the law, he tracked and executed those responsible regardless of age or gender. Under indictment for the multiple murders that followed, he left Earth never to return; his birth name lost, his identity changed. Lydia’s child, Katheryn Duncan was adopted and hidden with an identity change far from anyone who could exact retribution or use her as leverage. Peregrine Lassiter, former police officer wanted for twelve murders was laid to rest, and Lazlo was born.

It was then he was approached by the Symposium- assassins who never asked why they were killing or for whom. Political targets, criminals, terrorists, the Symposium leased the contracts and reaped the rewards- and in the twelve years that followed his adopted daughter grew to adulthood. He could never tell Katheryn what he did- she wanted him to be a hero but he felt anything but. Each time he returned to visit her face hardened as she began to ask questions about his life, his unique talents, and wondered just how much responsibility he bore for her mother’s death. He wanted to be a hero, but in her eyes he never felt good enough. Just once he wanted to see her, tell he saved a life instead of taking one and feel her pride- but as contract followed contract, the opportunity never came.

So the years passed, and Lazlo sent money, but no words in his shame.

Melbourne Transit Station, Austral Pacific Sector, August 13th, 14:21 LST

Ten days later, Lazlo emerged from the stream network, a line of rings that propelled starships at incredible speeds throughout each star system and docked at Melbourne station in the Austral-pacific rim. Like all League stations, Melbourne was a modular design, constructed with docking rings linked to a five deck central hull with artificial gravity. Within its open plan interior, shops and promenades provided a momentary rest for the civilian traveller and uniformed Terran League personnel that patrolled the streams and the Gate / Fold generators that permitted faster than light travel between the stars. Bright flags hung overhead, windows looked out on the starfield beyond, and the bright décor resembled a starport departure lounge the likes of which were found across every colony.

Reports of the Chaos plague dominated the media streams and gathered the nervous in clusters of muttering apprehension as Lazlo wound his way through the uniforms and tourists to a contact called Welsh, a tall man who was once a sniper for the Symposium. He ran a hardware store within Melbourne station, closed his shop for the visit, and briefed Lazlo over a coffee.

“Twenty thousand for Justin Carl” Welsh transferred the money into Lazlo’s account, “did you know he moonlighted for a slavery ring? One hundred for the next. Severin’s passed on the contract.”

“Doesn’t surprise me” Lazlo seethed that an assassin like Severin could rise to such a high rank without ever leaving Earth. They had worked together once, years before on a job within the core worlds. It was not an experience Lazlo liked to remember.

“Gael Warwick” Welsh tossed a paper file across the desk. It amused Lazlo that the Symposium liked to use paper, an easily disposable medium for the passing of information. “Corrupt barrister and political agitator. Well guarded, home has an advanced security system, private guards. How’s your daughter, by the way?”

“Gail Warwick” Lazlo studied the pages that detailed the house, grounds, and defences. “Never heard of her.”

“She’s a ‘he’” repeated Welsh, “Gael’s a male- his file’s on page ten. It’s not a son you left lying about the colonies? It is a daughter, isn’t it?”

“Why is Gael Warwick worth so much?” Lazlo was curious, and chose to ignore the jibes about his family. The security on the home didn’t look that comprehensive. Welsh paused whilst wondering how to deliver the next piece of unwelcome news. When Lazlo fixed him with a glance, he confessed with a shrug.

“..He’s on Grace Colony, and it’s falling to Chaos. Twenty two hours ago four ships with infected cargo came out of the stream on auto-pilot broadcasting distress beacons. One docked with the League station in orbit, the others made planet-fall amongst the population. Twelve million and falling…”

Unconcerned, Lazlo called up a map around Gael’s home. “Is there a time limit?” he asked.

“The Symposium want proof of his death with a post mortem genetic sample and an image file. Confirm within forty eight hours or you lose the money. You’ll have to get close.”

“That could be difficult considering the natives…” Lazlo replied. “I’ll need a team desperate enough to value the payment over the Chaos plague.”

“Is it a son or a daughter? I’m only asking because if you get bitten or scratched and end your days sprinting after your next meal, your offspring might not be too impressed that Dad’s gone cannibal. Hey, how do you applaud a comedian infected with Chaos? Give him a hand…”

Lazlo ignored him, but his expression conveyed volumes. Welch shrugged, sighed and called up a short file of personalities. To maintain its secrecy, the Symposium also worked with the Bounty Hunter’s Guild, of which Lazlo was also a rising member, and each Guild office updated a running list of operators in the area.

“You’re in luck because there are three on station” said Welsh. “An ex-cop mercenary and two lane hackers from a scavenger unit- do you want them?”

Grace Colony- August 14th, 11:53 LST

Nineteen hours later the Lydia emerged from a stable wormhole through the automated Gate / Fold station and travelled the stream to witness the hurried evacuation of Grace Colony. The military vessel TLVN Elizabeth dropped wave upon wave of fighters, starships emerged from the atmosphere, and two assault carriers were locked into a docking profile with the League orbital station Poise. Lazlo took the Lydia through the atmosphere without filing a flight plan, for now was not the time for protocol. On any other day he would have transmitted his identity as a member of the Bounty Hunter’s Guild- today, he simply did not bother. He was here to find a man and kill him. Protocol, infected, security- all were problems to be ignored. He was one of the top three assassins in the colonies.

He was Lazlo.

The Lydia descended beneath the cloud layer to a vision of hell. The once peaceful city of Grace Colony was falling, a thousand vehicle horns beeped, jammed together on roads, the occupants trapped, whilst other areas echoed with gunshots and violence. Columns of smoke stretched to the sky as unchecked fires raged and in the skies panic reigned. Flight paths were abandoned, any craft that could take survivors to safety was commandeered, and two fleeing craft collided with each other near a cargo freight vessel. Rolling beneath the blast wave, Lazlo told Lydia to silence her proximity alarms and plot a vector towards their target.

Beneath him, panic flooded the streets and it was hard to determine those fleeing from the pursuing infected who leapt with savagery on any food source they could find. Improvised barricades were set up at choke points as fast as they were overwhelmed, civilians clustered on rooftops and held up banners to attract any rescuer, but Lazlo steeled his heart away from them all- he had paid business today and he could only fit four in his ship.

Gael Warwick’s residence stood in an exclusive part of the city, on a hill overlooking the central business district. Spacious lawns, low walls, and private security marked this as a place for the affluent- each house was a masterpiece of original design, and each garden created on a theme according to the owner’s taste. No vehicles crossed the skies above the palatial homes and no cars scoured the streets. The infected hadn’t made it to this part of town- yet.

He set down the Lydia’s smile as close to the no-fly zone as he dared; ships weren’t allowed near the residences and automated defences were designed to alert the police at first, and then scramble incoming electronics with white noise generators. If a persistent ship tried access, the defences were authorised for deadlier force.

Lazlo emerged from the underside of the ship, dressed for combat with a rifle in his shoulder, its gun computer displaying the aim trajectory on his yellow lens sunglasses. The three behind him were similarly attired. First out was Labrador, a covetous scavenger who specialised in finding bits of rubbish others left behind. Price was his snickering girlfriend- a gifted tracker and collector of property who followed with avaricious eyes. Their dilapidated ship was back on Melbourne and for this run they had become Lazlo’s crew, complimenting each other with arrogance and greed. They did not know or care that Lazlo worked for Symposium; they came only for the chance to steal the abandoned riches left by a population in flight. As eyes and a spare pair of hands they suited Lazlo perfectly, and were as useful as they were expendable.

The third and final member was useful in a different way. Welsh had described him as “a former cop, like you, only from Atlanta PD, SWAT team sniper, now a mercenary”. His file gave his name as ‘Craic Derrick’, his parents were Maori and he was known to the Symposium as ‘Dodge’. Huge, muscular and armed like a tank, he moved silently for a large man and did not care about anyone or anything beyond himself.

No rubbish littered the streets here as the distant sounds of gunfire and screaming drifted on a soft warm wind over manicured ground where old world style blended with modern technology. Everything was in order, no cars abandoned nor luggage left. It was as if time had stopped and sucked up all the people.

Lazlo led them from the ship in two by two formation, covering ground quickly as they skirted walled estates. Where electronic gates lay open, the owners had fled. Where they lay closed, they dare not look for fear of what they might find.

No sound greeted their approach to Gail Warwick’s home. The walls were high; the gates were closed, and automated security scanned for intruders. The gates, walls, and perimeter were under constant watch by the latest surveillance drones money could buy, disguised as gargoyles to complete the illusion that the owners weren’t living in a fortress at all. The security was good, but it only took Labrador and Price three minutes to crack the circuits whilst Lazlo and Dodge covered their approach angles and waited for anything to challenge or charge them from the neighbourhood.

Whilst the two scavengers looted the house, Lazlo and Dodge searched for survivors and found none. They moved softly from room to room, extrinsic visitors with black weapons amidst the peace of a home abandoned; priceless artworks adorned the alcoves, framed certificates donated achievements from a time long gone, and food lay untouched in the fridge. Price helped herself to things she could never afford, Dodge helped himself to things because he could, and Labrador found the expensive bottles in the cellar with an unprofessional cry of delight. Faced with the awful truth, Lazlo had Labrador crack the computer and confirm his fears.

Gael Warwick was not at home, he owned a yacht capable of interstellar flight, the yacht was still moored at the docks, and that meant Gael Warwick was probably on the world.

Welsh had hired them using the bounty hunters guild as cover, so it came as no surprise when Lazlo announced their pay was suspended if the contract could not be found.

“If he’s alive, he’s infected by now” Price pouted on a couch as she helped herself to more champagne. Labrador didn’t know where to sit- he had been born to wealth, lost it, and now scavenged with his partner in memory of a life once lived. He wanted to be paid and allowed to keep his loot. He said nothing against or in support of the discussion. He never did.

“I still need a genetic sample from his body” Lazlo would not be moved on the point. The Symposium paid only for confirmation of Gael’s death, and that meant Lazlo would have to find him or his corpse. The fact that Gael could be infected or dead meant little- his car was missing, indicating he had tried to get to the docks. All Lazlo had to do was find him amongst the remains of the city and complete the contract.

“Walk into that? You can’t tell infected from desperate and what’s more, the healthy are more likely to shoot first. Suicide” Dodge didn’t speak often but he spoke plainly enough now. Lazlo looked from one to the other- he needed their help, but could not pay them enough to walk into hell.

“Best pray I come back. The ship responds to my voice command only” he said, “stay here, enjoy the champagne, or guard the ship. But if I don’t return…” he left the threat unsaid.

Lazlo waited until dark to go after Gael. Unchecked fires multiplied in the city, casting nightmare shadows of roving gangs searching for their next meal. Some sprinted, some shuffled, and many cowered from anything that moved. In the darkness, everyone became equal. It was theorised the sense of smell was amplified by the Chaos virus but Lazlo did not want to get close enough to test the theory. He slipped a couple of pills designed to mask his body scent, designer drugs supplied to assassins facing guard dogs, and hoped they would prevent his smell of “healthy” from attracting attention.

Stealing into the darkness, he moved silently on rubber soled boots through the detritus of civilisation with his rifle in his shoulder, ready to snap into a firing stance at any threat. His sunglasses were stowed and Lazlo now relied on his own eyes in the fire-lit night, genetically enhanced in his first year of life by surgeons, paid for by parents who always wanted their son to be a cop.

His hunt was not without hope and in a city of twelve million infected and healthy alike, Lazlo had help. Gael enjoyed the benefits that money could buy, including the highest quality of medical cover. In the briefing, Welsh had provided a tracker linked to Gael’s “come-save-me” implant, designed to guide a rescue team to his location in a serious medical event. Lazlo used it now as a homing beacon.

Avoiding main roads he progressed through a world abandoned to detritus. Street lights still worked but would not for long, traffic lights winked in sequence to cars that no longer ran, and bill boards flashed adverts for products no-one was buying. He passed through an area of high class shops and boulevards where cars had crashed into each other. Here a wrist severed on broken glass protruded from a frame, blood long since stopped. There a car’s window obscured from within, red liquid beading down the glass from spray.

Across the city he heard shouts, screams, and guttural cries and knew the civilians would not have given up yet. Studies had been done on the effects of the chaos plague, and they never read well. People were used to law and order, they were used to rules and regulations, but they were not used to their friends, neighbours, colleagues and strangers attacking them with a ferocity seen only in wild animals.

Some would hold themselves up and wait for the infected to starve to death. It was a good plan, and the orders in case of infection were always the same- “stay in your homes”. No-one knew how long the infected would last if denied a food source. Would they feed upon one another? The scientists knew the infected did not favour live infected flesh; the studies had been done under laboratory conditions during the first outbreak. Some had been captured, analysed, and treated like lab rats to find a cure. From first bite, saliva infected the blood of the recipient and the virus would multiply within the haemoglobin. White blood cells would be attacked and as soon as the virus reached the brain, the full effects began. Scratches did the same thing, it just took longer.

They weren’t undead: if a person died from wounds caused by the infection, they didn’t ‘turn’ and reanimate. They simply become a cadaver, a corpse to be utilised as food. The scientists reckoned there was a subtle taste difference between the two, hence why infected fed upon other infected, but only when they were dead.

Lazlo didn’t care. He knew the theories, read the papers, but knew it made little difference as he focussed on the practicalities- take a wound from an infected, and he would never leave the colony, never see his daughter, and never make number one.

And that just wasn’t good enough.

The boulevards and arcades gave way to retail parks. By one a horde of infected had gathered, pounding on the locked gates of a shopping centre. Lazlo avoided them with care, glad there were still uninfected to draw the crowds away. He ducked into a doorway and checked the tracker; the signal was strengthening and he was getting close. He left the street shortly after and rested for a while in what appeared to be an abandoned orphanage. Mercifully, blood did not splash the walls indicting all the children had left or been evacuated and no one was in residence, living or dead. He took a vantage point in a high room and planned the next leg of his journey as his earpiece gave a soft beep. When he answered, it was so low as not to carry.

“Lazlo.”

“Dodge. What’s your position?”

“Less than two kilometres from the target” Lazlo replied. “I should have this done in a couple of hours but it depends on the locals.”

“Need anything?” Dodge’s voice didn’t express concern- merely the practicality of a working man. He wouldn’t go with Lazlo to the city, but if Lazlo didn’t return, Dodge would be stuck here for a long time.

“Strong black coffee and a bag of doughnuts” Lazlo said, wistfully. He heard a low laugh as Dodge appreciated the joke. Both ex-cops, his reference to coffee and doughnuts honoured the time honoured stereotypical food of the law enforcement officer. “How are the kids doing?”

“Labrador’s trying to work out how to crack your computer” said Dodge, honestly. “Price wants to rip it out and fly on manual. If they do it, we’re leaving you behind- money or not.”

“Thanks for the honesty” said Lazlo. “I’ll try and be home before bedtime.”

“You don’t seem concerned” Dodge replied.

“Why should I be? The sky’s about to light up in your area as soon as Labrador gets past the second set of safeties. Lydia will overload the engines and the blast range should flatten everything within five hundred metres” Lazlo casually checked outside the window and decided to leave. There was silence from the other end.

“…You’re bluffing” said Dodge.

“If you say so” Lazlo began to move, then froze at the creak of a floorboard. His short carbine was silenced and each bullet half loaded to ensure secrecy and if he fired a shot it wouldn’t carry beyond the walls of the orphanage. Stepping over two pairs of discarded shoes and socks, he reached the door.

“I’ll tell them to stop” Dodge offered.

“Wise move” Lazlo whispered as he glanced out. There, in the darkness, a pair of yellow eyes glared back at him from an investigating cat. Lazlo checked around to make sure the cat was alone, and then held his hands out. The cat came and Lazlo crouched to stroke it. He didn’t have time for sentiment. Infected blood didn’t affect animals, and the cat would turn feral within a week. That was the way of things.

He was getting closer now and knew the signal was coming from the monorail station in the heart of the city and judging by the noise, the area was heavily infected. Lazlo found a five storey media building belonging to ‘Eyes 24’ local news, and entered. Passing bodies on the stairs, he progressed beyond the control room with its blue-scrolling unattended screens and reached the grav pad on the roof, stepping over the grisly remains of bodies consumed during and after a last stand. Moving to the edge, he could see the station under a kilometre away and the streets between them full of stumbling infected. If he was going to get in, he needed a better plan.

“Lydia” he said into comms, rewarded by the private feed from his computer, “can you access street level and sub-level architectural plans for the monorail district? Radius two blocks.”

“Stand by…” Lydia replied. Lazlo waited and watched. He could see at least two hundred infected on the streets, each one alone but in proximity to each other, their numbers ebbed and flowed like a wave. Some meandered past an abandoned car, silhouettes within the headlight beams. Others leaned against shop windows, searching for anything they could eat. Here and there bodies lay on the floor, clothing ripped and torn. Some infected were clothed, having been at work or home when turned. One teenage girl sat in her pyjamas, perched atop a car chewing on something he would rather not recognise.

“Uploading” said Lydia, and he glanced to the screen of his arm computer as the schematic of the sewers displayed. Lydia had identified a route into the monorail station from his building. All he had to do was get there.

The alley was quiet. Bodies lay in the gutters long since drained of blood and missing meat from the bones. With night-sight goggles now perched on his head, Lazlo checked each direction then progressed silently to a storm drain in the floor. He crouched and lay his carbine on one side, his gloves taking firm hold of the slick metal and he began to pull. The grate moved slowly and with it the metal rasped on the stone. Lazlo glanced around- the sound seemed irresponsibly loud in the night but he carried on regardless. Other men would have given up, he thought. Other men would not have walked into the valley of death to collect on a contract.

But he told himself that was Lazlo, ranked third assassin in the Symposium, and he was made of strength envied by lesser men.

The grate lifted high, tilting on its axis as a sound came from his right. Lazlo turned and looked- a young man shuffled into view not thirty metres away, watching him. It sniffed, stepped forward, as if unwilling to believe its senses. Lazlo looked down into the blackness of the storm drain but saw nothing- there was no light to amplify. He picked up his carbine and turned on a torch beam…

…and the infected started to run. Lazlo spun in his crouch and put a single round through the youth’s chest but the dying snarl drew more sounds from nearby. He spun into the ladder well and began to climb down, pulling the grate none too slowly after him. It hit the sheath with a clang and Lazlo dropped ankle deep into black water. Infected converged on the street level and he quickly shone his torch each way down the circular sewer before moving away from the noise above. The snarls receded as he pushed the goggles onto his forehead and held the carbine in both hands. He was strong…he was brave….

…He was terrified.

Alone in the dark the demons of his youth tormented him. Step by step he progressed, turning often to face the footsteps his mind said were behind him, ever eager to strike. Torchlight bounced off the tubular brick walls and shone from the black water beneath his boots until he settled his breathing. He could die here, closed in by the coldness of the stone, the claws of the mob above…

Suddenly, one hundred thousand didn’t seem like much.

He turned and froze. There, ahead of him in the darkness, sat a young girl, leaning back against the curvature of the glistening wall. Her eyes reflected in his torchlight unblinking, and he stood for seconds, maybe minutes, waiting for the noise of his wading to wake her up. She would blink, raise her head, look him in the eye and begin her shambling gait- but nothing happened. Who she was, he could not tell. Dressed in dirty jeans, a jumper, training shoes soaked by the water, she had died earlier in the day and in the light of his gun-torch a wound on her neck stained her jumper black before she could be turned. Slowly, he made his way forwards, telling himself she was only a corpse. He had seen many like her, and caused many himself; yet something about this solitary girl made him stop and stare. She could only have been nineteen, if that. Her whole life ahead and the possibilities were endless before everything changed in two days of madness that led to this point.

Around her neck she wore a silver chain that spelled out a name- Laura. He felt it, looked at her chipped nail polish, expensive jumper ruined by blood and damp, untied shoes. She was one of twelve million affected by the disaster, another casualty, another loss. He breathed, waiting out the moments in a silent vigil. For years he had found girls like her beneath floorboards, stuffed into car trunks, buried in shallow graves where the sick and twisted thought they would no longer be found. For years he had fought to put names to faces, bring the guilty to justice and uncover the truth behind their lies.

But there was no mystery in this. He knew exactly what had killed her. He knew the identity of the killer was irrelevant, only its form, its method. She had deserved better than this. Without knowing why, a chord of vengeance touched his heart and he leaned forward to unclip the silver chain from around her neck. He pocketed it to lay at a future monument and closed her eyes, then lay her gently down on the floor.

Lazlo heard the shuffling through the water before he saw the infected that splashed down the corridor dragging its rear leg; a middle aged man appeared, who hours before had tried to escape the city by train. Now he stalked the sewers for a meal and stopped within reach. His glassy eyes turned to look in the torchlight, recognising the body and then seeing Lazlo- who drove his rifle butt into the man’s skull. As he dropped, Lazlo continued to strike, driving the butt home again and again until the skull cracked beneath the strain. Fear and frustration gave way to anger, as if the act of killing this one man could wash away his pain and guilt at stalking through the halls of the dead whilst the infected roamed the ground above.

When he finished, Lazlo stood panting above the body and washed the blood that dripped from his rifle butt in the dark water that lapped around his boots. It was time to go.

From the sewers, Lazlo found a ladder leading up into the bowels of the monorail station. He climbed quickly and quietly upwards, rifle slung and eyes adjusting to the dim light that filtered above. Through the darkness, fires burned within the carriages of a long grav train that illuminated most of the station and the bodies that littered the platforms. The station had seen the worst of the infection; hundreds of people waiting for a train to take them from the city were fell upon by the very horror they sought to escape. Blood stained much of the floor and amid the darkness, the infected lay in sleep. Some stirred, bodies moving slowly like the writhing of unkempt snakes making it difficult to tell which was corpse and which infected. There was no sanity here, only chaos, only hell.

Swallowing hard and fighting his desire to turn and run, to return to his ship and claim Gael Warwick had been destroyed beyond recognition, Lazlo ascended to the main platform and found a ladder that would take him upwards to the service levels. He climbed in silence, watching for signs that his passage was noted until he reached a high level gantry and looked down upon the room. With his rifle scope and the tracker muted, he began to search.

In silence he quartered the room, taking each group to search faces and clothing, a solitary sentinel overlooking a sea of the damned. When obstacles obscured his view, he moved amongst the gantries, careful not to slip and fall. Calm fought the fear in his mind and control fought the rage; no experience in life had prepared him for this, crouched not twenty metres above the floor, a dark figure of life above the hell beneath.

He stopped. Adjusting his position, Lazlo crept closer with rifle slung and both hands supporting his careful tread on a thin girder. He had to get closer to confirm what he thought he just saw. There- sleeping amidst a crowd of other infected, chest rising and falling in life lay Gael Warwick.

And he was very much infected.

Lazlo breathed hard, gloves gripping the steel of the gantry. He had come so far, journeyed into the valley of madness to kill a man already lost to life, and his payment dictated he climb down to the platform level, pick his way through the sleeping bodies, kill his target in silence and wait seconds to recover a post-mortem sample.

And if any of the neighbours woke, he would be next on the menu.

Next Chapter: New Chapter