A World Reborn: The First Outbreak (15 page)

Roy and Donna moved back and looked objectively
at the barricade they’d erected in front of the door from a pair of filing
cabinets, two desks and a couple of chairs. The computers that once occupied
the two desks were on the floor, while Donna’s workstation had remained in situ
as they were hoping she could continue working until the last second.

“How’s that look, Donna?” Roy wanted to
know.

“Like a piece of junk, Roy.” Donna replied.
The pair looked at each other seriously, and then broke into nervous laughter.
The laughter died a moment later and the two were left just looking at each
other.

“Roy—”

“Don’t.” Roy intervened, putting his hand
on her shoulder.

“It’s just—”

“I know. I’ve always known. I was a cop,
remember?” He asked lightly.

“So it couldn’t work?”

“I’m married, Donna, and I love my wife.”

“Yeah.” Donna returned, biting her lip. “I
know.”

It was becoming awkward, and Roy didn’t
want it to be that way, so he stepped back and cleared his throat.

“So, any luck getting further into the
system?”

Donna nodded and returned to her desk,
sitting down after one final look at the barricade they’d erected in the hope
of prolonging their lives.

“Some. The more I try, the more I run the
risk of being detected by the malware’s defences and locked out of the system.
If that happens, then I have to start over.”

“Well, shit.” Roy exclaimed softly. The
phone suddenly rang on Donna’s desk; it was and shrill, surprising and startled
them both. Roy knew what this meant. Pretty soon he’d not be useful to the people
who had taken over the hotel, if Melissa’s suspicions were correct.

“You going to answer it, Chief?” Donna
questioned as it rang again.

“Yeah.” Roy returned wearily, and then
picked up the phone. “Hello?” He initiated.

“Who am I speaking to?” A male voice
demanded.

“I’m Security Chief Roy Snipes, formerly
with the Las Vegas P.D. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Michael Esperico. We don’t know
if you’re aware—” Esperico started but Roy cut him off.

“We’re very aware, Lieutenant. There’s an
incredible, unbelievable situation going on in here and we need all the help we
can get. We’re certain the people responsible are listening on this phone line
right now, as the phones weren’t working until after that broadcast.”

“Okay, Snipes, give me everything you’ve
got.”

Roy carefully relayed everything he knew,
from the hostages and the infected, to their armaments and intentions. He was
precise but omitted any mention of Melissa.

“If you breach, the best advice I can give
is for you to aim for the head. The infected can’t be reasoned with and they
can’t be wounded. A head shot seems to be a kill, and as far as we know, it’s
the only way to stop them.”

“I can’t sanction the execution of sick
people, you know that Snipes. We need to get the CDC down here to set up some
kind of quarantine. The FBI are already on their way, so any action is going to
be run through them. Where are you getting your information?”

“We’ve got limited access to the
surveillance feeds, and some of my men relayed it before I lost contact with
them.” Roy lied. Donna shot him a look, but he shook his head.

“Snipes, we’ll get back to you.” Esperico
stated, and then the line went dead. Roy suspected they were now going to
confirm he was exactly who he said he was, and probably attempt to acquire some
blueprints, so they were better informed about the layout of the hotel before
they moved forward. Roy knew that although there was imminent danger of further
loss of life - Melissa, Donna and himself as well as the hostages - they would
have to at least try to negotiate their release, and when that failed, as he
felt it surely would, they still couldn’t breach if there was a biological
containment issue. The Reborn would have enough time to do whatever they’d
planned to do in the hotel. Perhaps hit the vault, even though this seemed like
a hell of a way to steal money.

Roy put the phone down and sighed heavily.

“That was very good, Mister Snipes. Very
good indeed. I wonder, however, why you didn’t mention Melissa?” A woman’s
voice came across the radio. She had an accent just like Melissa’s and for a
half second, Roy had thought it was her. But then Roy’s heart sank. It seemed
they’d been listening in on him and Melissa for who knew how long.

“Damn.” He groaned to himself.

“Do pick up the radio, Mister Snipes. We’ve
some things to discuss.”

Roy hesitated, and then reached down and
picked up the radio from Donna’s desk.

“Identify yourself.” Roy said into the
radio.

“I’m the Ancillary.”

“Don’t you have a name?” Roy quizzed.

“Names have power, Mister Snipes, and with
the work that needs to be carried out, the Teacher has insisted we only to give
them when absolutely necessary.”

“In other words, you don’t want to
broadcast it over the airwaves in case the cops are listening and it leads back
to your buddies.”

“That’s one way to look at it. Is Melissa
on the line with us?”

There was no answer.

“I suppose she’s turned off the radio
again. She’s a wily one. The Teacher will be very impressed with her; very
impressed indeed. She and I will have to have a long chat. But right now,
Mister Snipes, there’s the question of what to do with you. We see you’ve built
a... well, I guess we should call it a barricade. Although it won’t stop us if
we choose to come in of course.” The Ancillary warned.

Roy took a look around and saw the camera
in the corner had its little red ‘on’ light illuminated. They were watching
right now.

“What do you want?” Roy demanded.

“Nothing, right now. We want you staying
right where you are, because I’m sure sooner or later Melissa will be along,
once she’s got her hands on a collar, and then we’ll grab her. Just remember,
Mister Snipes, if the time should come for you to make a choice between helping
us or hindering us, you must think of it as a choice between life and death.”
The Ancillary threatened, and then the radio went silent. Roy tossed it onto
Donna’s desk and then went over to the camera, where he reached up and yanked the
power lead out from the back, disabling it. He sighed heavily. If they’d been
listening in then they knew her entire plan; how she was planning to enter the
casino, and how she was planning on trying to reach him and Donna. He hoped
against hope that Melissa had turned the radio back on at some point, because then
he could warn her that they were listening in and to abort her plan. He wasn’t
completely certain it would matter even if she had. They would find her anyway,
even if she didn’t come to try and rescue him and Donna.

“Damn it!” Roy roared suddenly, making
Donna jump. “You’ve got to get into the computer system, Donna, you’ve got to
find a way to help us get this door open or we’re both screwed.”

Donna shook her head in response. “I can
try Chief, but if we get caught by the malware then we’ll undo all the progress
we’ve made so far. I’m just a little scared of messing up.” She confessed.

“You’ve got to. I believe in you. I’ll be
honest, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about or even what you’re doing, but
you’re the best computer tech I’ve ever met, and I’ve got absolute faith in
you. You can do this, Donna!” Roy enthused, and this seemed to be the push the
woman needed. She immediately began typing on the keyboard, and passively, Roy
watched her work.

Chapter Six

Melissa had crossed over and taken the
south stairs down to the ground floor. She didn’t want to contact Roy yet, to
find out if he’d made any headway on her actually getting down to him, as she
wanted to get into position first. The biggest obstacle, at least from her
perspective, were the thousands of infected in the casino, but she had to get
through them; Roy and the hostages were depending on her and she couldn’t
afford to fail.

“One problem at a time.” Melissa whispered
to herself as she thought this over. She cracked the door to the ground floor
open a few inches and peeked out, but it proved useless. All she could see was
the other side of the corridor housing the elevators, which was of no more help
than looking at a blank wall. So, exercising extreme caution, Melissa opened
the door enough for her to peer around the edge of it. She saw that the
immediate area was empty, enabling her to quietly proceed. She exited the
stairwell and pressed herself up against the wall on her right, before moving
past the bank of elevators. When she reached the corner, she could see out
along the edge of the huge casino area, the hallway opposite and the cafes,
stores and bars to its left. The Reborn had completely sealed off the casino,
ransacking the stores for materials to build their barricade around the wide,
arched entrances as well as metallic barricades in front of some sections
similar to the ones she’d seen up in front of the elevators on the executive
suite floor. Some sections however, were barricaded entirely with furniture.
There was no sign of the infected outside the casino area, and there were no
signs of the Reborn either. Melissa ducked down and peeked around the corner
she was pressed up against. She saw the turn of the avenue she knew led to both
the theatre and the sports bar, but one of the Grand Staircases was directly in
her way, which meant she would have to move around it to check on where the
Reborn where in that direction. As there were no Reborn that she could see, she
hunkered down and slipped silently out and around the corner. She hugged the
wall, only stepping away to get around the staircase blocking her path, then
hurrying back to the wall once more. As she moved towards the theatre, she idly
glanced across at the confined infected who were baying at her, pressing
against the barricade as they caught scent and sight of a new victim.
Shuddering, Melissa warily continued onwards, ignoring them as best she could. Eventually,
she could see the first edge of the theatre, where she stopped.

Across the way, she could see the ‘Staff
Only’ door, with a key card lock beside it. Edging closer to the corner on her
side of the avenue, Melissa was able to see the Reborn, about six of them, hard
at work stacking what furniture they could find to make a defensive position
around the perimeter of the theatre. Risking one quick glance fully around the
corner of the wall she’d been following enabled her to see the sports bar
directly across from the theatre, and while it was impossible to see it
clearly, a brief glimpse through the windows was enough to reveal quite a few
of the infected inside. The doors were shut and it seemed this isolation meant
they were no longer under the calming influence of the collars, because they
were pressing themselves up against the glass desperately trying to get to the
soldiers and the hostages in the theatre beyond.

Melissa pulled back around the corner and
saw a fire alarm just by her shoulder. The plan crystallised in Melissa’s mind.
She remembered how noise aggravated the infected; even the screaming of just
one woman was enough to drive the nearest infected to her rabid with ravenous
hunger. Noise seemed to cut through the collar’s effect, as they had snapped at
the Reborn during the massacre at the Money Pit, who had then been forced to
physically fight them off. She followed this line of thought through, and
figured if she was able to set off the fire alarm, and then unleash the
infected from the sports bar and casino, it would keep Reborn soldiers busy
trying to control them and then, perhaps, she could slip past them without
being seen. The only problem was there were bound to be more guards inside the
theatre. However, if there was enough of a ruckus outside then the soldiers
guarding the prisoners would be forced to leave and help or at least, some of
them would. If that happened, then maybe, and it was a slim chance at best, she
could go in through the back of the theatre and quietly dispatch the soldiers
within. But where would she and the hostages go? Logically, she mused, it
seemed they would have to go down to the security room and hold up there until
the police made it inside, assuming she was able to get down there initially to
enlist Roy’s assistance.

“As easy as that.” Melissa said to herself
once she had concluded her line of thought. She had retreated to underneath the
grand staircase where she looked across at the Money Pit, first seeing the used
cameras for the broadcast discarded in a pile, and then seeing the half-eaten
remains of those who hadn’t been infected and turned. The sight of all that
blood made Melissa’s stomach churn, so she forced herself to tear her gaze away
from the scene of slaughter and her mind to the task in hand. Slipping the
collar out of her pocket, she put it around her neck and clicked it together.
She awkwardly craned her neck to see if the light was green, which it was, so
she concluded it was working as well as it had on the rooftop with the remains
of the soldier who had fallen.

Melissa holstered the gun in her belt and
gripped the bat tightly in her hands, holding it across herself as she
cautiously hunkered down to move towards the casino in a kind of crouched walk.
She knew down to the right soldiers were guarding the theatre, but she hoped
they were far enough away that they wouldn’t notice her. Checking in the
direction of lobby, she saw it was clear of the infected and Reborn alike,
seeing only the lowered, heavy security gate on the outside of the hotel doors.
Melissa quickly moved in line with the Money Pit. She felt revulsion at
stepping into the blood, which had sprayed out onto the floor and spread in a
pool towards the staircases; a sight which turned her stomach violently again.
A brief look inside showed the blood and human remains had seeped down onto the
fans which would normally spin coupons into the air for happy holidaymakers,
and the acrylic walls were also painted with blood and gore. Once again she
forced herself to look away, and focused on the barricaded entrance to the
casino instead. Away from the suppression effect of the collars, the infected
were incredibly agitated, likely caused by the bloody remnants lingering in the
Money Pit. With a final, awkward look to see if the light was still green on
the collar, Melissa approached a section of the barricade consisting of a large
table with a pair of heavy duty waste bins on top to discourage the infected
from climbing over. There was a smaller table underneath, its top facing the
casino, with a couple of bins pressed tightly behind to prevent them from
crawling under.

Melissa looked over the barricade and saw
that the line of infected grunting and growling at the forefront seemed to calm
down once she got a little closer, and despite her growing feelings of fear,
Melissa raised her hand up near the face of one of the infected. He looked at
her hand curiously, like a child regarding some new stimulant for the first
time, and then looked away. Melissa looked him in the eyes. They were pale, as
were the other infected, and his skin was pallid. She looked behind him at the
throng of infected, the closest of whom were falling into the same kind of idle
stupor that the ones nearest to her were in. With a quick glance to ensure that
her point of entry to the casino was obscured from the Reborn establishing the
defensive perimeter outside the theatre, she carefully mounted the table that
was directly in front of her. She got one foot up into a space just big enough
for her boot, and crossed over the waste bin that stood in her path. She
intended to put her foot on the other side of the bin on top of the table, but
as she transitioned, the table wobbled slightly from the infected piled against
it and she fell into the casino. She squeaked in fright, but managed to prevent
herself from giving a full throated yelp.  As she fell, she knocked down a pair
of the infected, landing awkwardly on top of them, while others were simply
knocked back and away. In what could almost be considered comical, the infected
looked up at her, wondering why this person was on them and why they were lying
down, as though they could barely comprehend what had just happened. However,
Melissa wasn’t in the mood to find it comical. She was terrified that at any
moment they’d see her for what she was: prey.

Melissa shook off the fall and got back to
her feet. She checked the collar, saw its light was still green, and breathed a
sigh of relief; a sigh which quickly turned to a gasp as she looked up and
around. She had known this was where the majority of the infected where, but to
actually be amongst them was an entirely different thing. It was impossible to
see through the vast crowd of what was presumably thousands of the infected. If
the collar stopped working she wouldn’t stand a chance - a negative thought she
firmly pushed aside. It would do her no good at all to be gripped by fear now.

She had dropped her bat in the fall and
needed to find it. She knelt down and looked between the legs of the infected
and luckily saw it off to the right. Melissa stood back up, took a deep breath
and slowly began pushing them out of the way. She handled them with caution,
keeping her hands away from their mouths and any open looking wounds, of which
there were many, with great chunks of flesh missing from their torsos, faces
and necks. Gentle shoving was enough to get them to move from her path, and, on
rare occasions, she was able to simply move her body through a gap presented by
them.

Melissa, despite moving calmly and
purposefully, was truly terrified. She saw more than one of the infected turn
to look at her as she passed, or more precisely she thought, turned to look at
the wound on her arm. It had stopped bleeding, but blood was soaked into the
fabric of her jacket and it seemed that even though the collar was stopping
them from attacking her, it wasn’t stopping them from noticing the relatively
fresh blood on offer. She reached the position where the bat had rolled and
knelt down to pick it up. Despite how many she had shoved and moved there were
still a lot of the infected around her, so Melissa forced herself to stand slowly
and carefully after she had retrieved it, hoping not to make too much of an
impact on them. Melissa knew she needed to get a good look around the casino
and figure out which direction to go in, because as she’d never set foot on the
casino floor before, she needed to get the lay of the land. She pushed her way
through and eventually reached a craps table. Putting her bat on it to one
side, she clambered up onto it and gazed around. The situation didn’t improve
with altitude. The sea of the infected spanned some considerable distance. The
enclosed space was loaded with them, as close to capacity as possible, which
was impressive considering the size of the casino floor. In the distance, there
were hundreds of slot machines, black jack tables, the cashier’s desk, and
every type of game imaginable, and wherever she looked, there were the
infected, shuffling, groaning and looking for their next meal. The ones further
away from her seemed to be regarding her hungrily, no doubt at the edge or even
beyond the limit of the collar’s effect. Worse still, the ones that were near
the slot machines were futilely attacking them every time the machines made a
noise; the jingling, the music, the flashing lights, it all angered the
infected. When the machines fell silent, the infected moved away, only to be
attracted by something else making a sound and returning to seek it out. The
ones nearest to Melissa, and indeed, the ones milling around the other parts of
the casino weren’t attracted to the sounds of the machines, and she wondered if
this meant they had some kind of range to their hearing. However, now wasn’t
the time for such musings; Melissa needed to focus on the task in hand.

After a glance in the direction of the
theatre to ensure she had not been seen, Melissa looked for some sign that
would tell her which way to go. She knew she needed to find her way to the
private rooms, but where they were in this maze of gambling venues was
difficult to determine. An unsettlingly long way away on the right side of the
floor, Melissa saw a sign hanging from the ceiling, and could barely make out
the word ‘Private’. Hoping it meant private gambling rooms, Melissa resolved to
head in that direction as carefully as she could. It was slotted away in the
far corner, and there were hundreds of the infected to get through in order to
reach it. Looking around once more, she observed there was a buffet and eating
area close by on her right, beyond a section of blackjack tables, but the door
leading to its back section was barricaded, and she didn’t want to mess with
it. Seeing no better options, Melissa carefully climbed down from the table,
pushing aside a few curious infected, and began moving amongst them in the
direction of the private area. She thought briefly of contacting Roy to confirm
she was heading in the right direction, but she feared the sound of her voice
and his response would aggravate the infected. Holding her bat tightly around
the handle, Melissa pressed onward.

It was difficult to see how much progress
she was making at her current level, with all the infected blocking her line of
vision, but Melissa slowly made her way towards what she hoped were the private
rooms. The number of infected thankfully grew fewer the further from the
barricade she got, making it easier to navigate. However, she couldn’t help but
notice that the ones at what she presumed were at the edge of the suppression
effect of the collar were moving to follow her, jostling through their docile
companions in an attempt to find the fresh meat. The thought of an attack
chilled Melissa. If anything went wrong she could quite possibly become one of
them; just another of the infected amongst the horde, to eventually be studied
or put down. The very concept that no one would know she cared enough to risk
her life to try to save people was abhorrent to Melissa. A far worse thought
crept uninvited into her mind; instead of being infected she could quite
possibly be consumed alive, screaming and pleading, until nothing but a bloody
mess of her remained. That thought filled her with abject horror. Being
infected would condemn her to a soul-destroying existence for a time, but at
least, in a way, it was quick. Being eaten alive, however...