A Jungle Of Concrete and Plywood
“Need a hand, A!”
I grip my spare sword and slash forward. The limb of the undead falls. I took out some chrism oil and lit the undead on fire.
“Watch out. Don’t want to burn the plywood.”
I drag the rest of the undead to a concrete floor of the corridor. On the side of the tenement we can see some 7S’s members chopping bodies left and right.
“You’re familiar with this.”
“I had a lot of jobs.”
She is smiling a little. She wipes the blood on her humming blade and takes a potshot at the undead with her arm.
“You’re in Midway, right?”
“Yup. How’s lotus lane?”
“Honestly, much calmer. But the same problem. Too much signage and advertisements.”
“Are there even places in Changye that don’t have signs everywhere?”
“Maybe Upper Changye?”
“Too sterilized. Too clean. If I stay too long there. I’d feel like a fish out of water. I'll go mad!”
Upper Changye is clean and white. If you think about what the future city should look like. UC is the ideal city since none of the ‘lower filth’ as they say gets up there without the permission, the money, and the clearance and especially the backing. I was able to enter UC before, but the clean environment made me uncomfortable. Guess playing in the filth for too long made me the kind who can’t stand a place like that. Or is this just me coping with not being in there?
“What took your mind to the clouds?”
She thumps me on the shoulder.
“Just thinking about something.”
She tilts her head slightly and then shoves an undead to the wall. Her humming blade cuts through the plywood, splitting the undead into two while keeping the walls intact. The cut was so clean that I think the walls didn't notice it got cut.
“My blade’s dulling.”
“It’s a Vibro. Is it dull so fast?”
She checks the castor hanging on my waist.
“If I’m right. The blade's high-frequency?”
“It is.”
“Barely use it. Can I borrow it? Whoa… you look like you’d kill me there for a second. Are you the kind who obsesses over your weapons of the trade? If anything, your boot has more use than your blades.”
I swung the spare sword Eta gave me. I have a habit of using my weapons until they are dull and unusable. You could say bad experiences have taught me a person should have spares whenever possible. Honestly, thinking about the past makes me wanna puke. How I manage to survive back then is a mystery even to me.
“I think we’re clear here.”
“Sure?”
Elvira takes one talisman and scratches the middle with her pinky nail. The talisman lets out a holy light spreading through every crevice. She makes a note of the talisman and takes out her transmitter.
“This is El’s team, we got no undead here.”
“Copying that, El. Got any more corridors to clear?”
She looks back to the path we’ve been taking. A legion of bodies burnt to a crisp with holy chrism.
“Think we purified a whole block now.”
“Roger. Another team found non-combatant minors. It’s… a sight.”
“I see. Are all of them infected?”
“Positively so. We have the Inquisitor give them their last rites.”
Elvira pockets her transmitter and stomps her boot down on the undead.
“Never does it get easy, huh?”
“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? We can do this to former humans, but when it comes to kids… we lost some of our nerves.”
“Would you still do it?”
“Depends on how much they can pay me.”
She replies with the same manner I expect from a merc like her.
The tenements are volatile. Even as we carefully go through the passageways. Accidents happen as some of the teams would burn one part of the tenement, the extended corridors are all over the place and sometimes because of the drywall and plywood everywhere. Things go sideways.
An explosion rocks the tenement. I can smell the gas from somewhere. Our instincts went into override as we dashed to the next block, crossing over a makeshift bridge while shoving the undead rushing at us. The passageways are full. Elvira dashes to the side, leaping on the scaffolding while using her humming blade to a deadly proficiency. My footing is unsteady, but the mindless undead are making the scaffolding creak. Jumping to the side of a balcony, holding the grill of a window, and scaling the side. Elvira swings her humming blade, decapitating a golem. Dropping some chrism oil, lighting them on fire, I took out eta’s spare blade and swung it with all I got, opening a pathway on the concrete firewall.
“Nice!”
Elvira dives in the firewall. I looked at the broken spare blade and tossed it to the side. Drawing Riki’s blade, the one I purchased, suijin. I move forward while avoiding the undead. Elvira’s cutting them to ribbons, but we ran out chrism oil and fire so we have to cut and retreat. She shouldered a thin plywood over and almost fell to the ground full of undead clawing at the buildings. Twisting her body, her augments made sharp sounds, as she used her prosthetic to reach the opposite edge. Firing the grappler on my gauntlet, I swung over, and retrieved the hook.
“Seriously, so much gear and you rarely use yours.”
“I lost a sword.”
“It was just a spare and using it on the firewall is your fault isn't it?”
Blades are expensive and honestly the gauntlet is just to block out attacks. The claws are easily dulled when you use them since they aren’t vibro-blade or high-frequency where you can use them as long as the battery cell is intact and active. Still, I rather wear out the gauntlet's talons than the blade I'm holding. I put my suijin back to its sheath and then grabbed onto a shovel. Following Elvira out on the 13th floor of the tenement. We saw an exit point and what seems to be an exit way for the bikes and food carts. Elvira takes a leap, gently breaking her roll with a fall. Taking my feet out of the asphalt road. I followed her out of the tenement and entered an open courtyard full of abandoned stalls. The rotten skewers and food displayed here means the undead rushed without them being able to take it. It’s been exposed to miasma as well, making it hard to even smell the stench even with the respiratory mask on.
Back on the CENTER. We made a full report of the purging process. The one leading purge, Inquisitor Noah is skimming through the report, skipping the descriptions to read the conclusions. He is a tall man wearing the cloth of his God while armed to the teeth like a warrior from hell. The only report he didn’t skip is from the team who performed the last rites to the minors.
“Did you give them their last rites?”
“We did.”
“Fast?”
“Yes.”
“I see. God… will understand why you did it.”
The team who did it nodded their heads curtly and left to rest. They are probably going to stay out of the field. Their faces look like they ate shit. The dullness in their eyes made everyone avoid them.
After the report, I got to where our space is and found Eta cleaning the gore off her blade. Elvira takes her jacket off and checks on her prosthetic.
“Yo, Assistant. Can you help me?”
I moved and checked the housing unit of her chrome. Most of it is intact and the only problem is the bits of gore stuck in the gap between her arm.
“You know, Assistant. Are you sure you really are from our office?”
Kei cracks her neck. Somehow, I can tell she’s rather pissed off by something. Eta shrugs her shoulders and checks on her regenerated arm too.
“I think so?”
“Then stop helping that bitch.”
“Kinda rude, Kei. It's not my fault I have to go and help you out.”
Elvira’s helping us out not exactly because of kindness. We’re associates here, but she’s doing this to get a bit more in her paycheck after accepting the 7S's request. And even though their relationship can be quite… troublesome. She’s a professional who can do it for the sake of the paycheck. I don’t really mind her, but that is not the case for Kei and Eta here who have bad dealings with her. Thankfully, Elvira's not petty enough to retort while on the job.
After a short rest. I got my dimenbag full of chrism oil again and got out with Elvira again. Eta’s protecting Kei while sorting through the data they got from the field about the concrete man. They're on intel duty while we are always out to do some cleansing.
“You ever curious about my relationship with those two?”
“Not really. I don’t pry.”
“I worked with them. They are good friends and capable comrades… but you saw it. They are ambitionless. You fit in with them because you are quite ambitionless too.”
“I disagree. I just know when to step out of the light.”
“Bothers me how you are so casual about this. For a man who willingly spent years in debt-slavery… you sure have no desire. It’s disgusting hearing it. Honestly, it makes me want to spit on you and throw you to the undead. Ambitionless bastards… I loathe them.”
“That so?”
Elvira shrugs at the professional demeanor I'm wearing on my face and walks to the table handing out the info on where we’ll have to purge again. It’s not like it isn’t true either. If I had any ambitions. I’d be doing harder jobs and tasks to improve my resume. But in this era? Trying to improve your resume is a russian roulette. One day you might just encounter a creature you have no idea how to handle and when that time comes. You’ll realize there’s nothing wrong with being such a cowardly piece of shit.
I put the thought on the back of my mind. I followed Elvira to Zone 19 and looked at the stacks of shacks forming a staircase. It smells rotten. Like a mixture of feces and blood hanging in the air. My respirator filter barely could handle it. The team ahead is methodically checking the turns and the corners and yet even as professionals as they are.
Sometimes the coin flip doesn’t go your way.
Tendrils of flesh reinforced with concrete punctures through armor. I block with my gauntlet as feel my back hitting plywood. Pulling myself up, I swung my gauntlet’s talons on the incoming attack and then jumped to the side. A flesh orb, the size of a 2-story house rolls over. Our associates distanced themselves, opening fire, and yet the concrete armor and the soft bouncy flesh under the concrete made it easy for the flesh to deflect them.
Elvira rushes forward. She swipes her blade upward and tears through the concrete with her humming blade. I block the incoming on her side and then skip back, adjusting my position to a spot where I can anticipate and block while keeping out of the gunfire coming from our associates.
I can hear another coin flip inside my head. I twisted my body around and barely avoided the tendril. Elvira, who was in a slashing position, got her left side torn. Her augments spilled out. She was barely able to hold herself up as red and blue blood spilled out of her body. Another tendril tore through her thigh and I barely got to swipe my talons at the other tendril trying to take her neck.
A team charges forward, blocking the tendril. I took out a medicinal foam from my dimenbag and sprayed it on the part of her body that was torn.
I dragged her to the side and took out my pistol just in case she has the undead infection, changing the mags to non-explosive rounds before checking her for any signs of turning.
“Any infection?”
“Can’t say yet.”
She got hit badly by the concrete reinforced tendril so it’s hard to get an analysis.
“Slot in. I need you to run a diagnosis…. Can’t do it because of obvious reasons.”
She points at the slot on her head. I took my transmitter out while dragging her behind the team gunning down the tendrils. I plugged my transmitter on the slot behind her left ear and activated angel mode.
“You are connected to the Angel Network. How May I help you, today?”
“Need a diagnosis for Agent Elvira.”
“Diagnosing.”
The transmitter loads data. Behind me the teams are finishing off the tendril, their volcano rounds melting the rolling ball of flesh and concrete into a puddle of flesh.
“Internals are compromised. Detected medicinal foam. Left kidney, left lung, is damaged. Internals are critical.”
“Check for undead infection.”
“None.”
“Diagnosis?”
“Please escort the injured to a medical service for immediate service. The life support device on her heart will keep her active until all power cells on her augments shut down. Will you allow me to know your location?”
“Do it.”
“Location is currently out of service. Placing a waypoint for transport where service is available.”
Elvira smiles irritatingly while listening to the bot.
“Well, I just jinxed myself. I’ll pay. Escort me and I will pay you.”
“Sure, you know my link.”
I accepted the request and plucked my transmitter's wire from her neck. Carrying Elvira to the CENTER, I had the ones escorting the refugees take her out of the LANES. I got my initial payment and informed Eta and Kei about what happened. Their faces were rather pleased about what happened to Elvira.
The purges resumed for the next four days. By the fifth day, we were running out of Agents and Associates who are willing to advance to the fort where the Scourge is.
A Jungle Of Concrete and Plywood
“Need a hand, A!”
I grip my spare sword and slash forward. The limb of the undead falls. I took out some chrism oil and lit the undead on fire.
“Watch out. Don’t want to burn the plywood.”
I drag the rest of the undead to a concrete floor of the corridor. On the side of the tenement we can see some 7S’s members chopping bodies left and right.
“You’re familiar with this.”
“I had a lot of jobs.”
She is smiling a little. She wipes the blood on her humming blade and takes a potshot at the undead with her arm.
“You’re in Midway, right?”
“Yup. How’s lotus lane?”
“Honestly, much calmer. But the same problem. Too much signage and advertisements.”
“Are there even places in Changye that don’t have signs everywhere?”
“Maybe Upper Changye?”
“Too sterilized. Too clean. If I stay too long there. I’d feel like a fish out of water. I'll go mad!”
Upper Changye is clean and white. If you think about what the future city should look like. UC is the ideal city since none of the ‘lower filth’ as they say gets up there without the permission, the money, and the clearance and especially the backing. I was able to enter UC before, but the clean environment made me uncomfortable. Guess playing in the filth for too long made me the kind who can’t stand a place like that. Or is this just me coping with not being in there?
“What took your mind to the clouds?”
She thumps me on the shoulder.
“Just thinking about something.”
She tilts her head slightly and then shoves an undead to the wall. Her humming blade cuts through the plywood, splitting the undead into two while keeping the walls intact. The cut was so clean that I think the walls didn't notice it got cut.
“My blade’s dulling.”
“It’s a Vibro. Is it dull so fast?”
She checks the castor hanging on my waist.
“If I’m right. The blade's high-frequency?”
“It is.”
“Barely use it. Can I borrow it? Whoa… you look like you’d kill me there for a second. Are you the kind who obsesses over your weapons of the trade? If anything, your boot has more use than your blades.”
I swung the spare sword Eta gave me. I have a habit of using my weapons until they are dull and unusable. You could say bad experiences have taught me a person should have spares whenever possible. Honestly, thinking about the past makes me wanna puke. How I manage to survive back then is a mystery even to me.
“I think we’re clear here.”
“Sure?”
Elvira takes one talisman and scratches the middle with her pinky nail. The talisman lets out a holy light spreading through every crevice. She makes a note of the talisman and takes out her transmitter.
“This is El’s team, we got no undead here.”
“Copying that, El. Got any more corridors to clear?”
She looks back to the path we’ve been taking. A legion of bodies burnt to a crisp with holy chrism.
“Think we purified a whole block now.”
“Roger. Another team found non-combatant minors. It’s… a sight.”
“I see. Are all of them infected?”
“Positively so. We have the Inquisitor give them their last rites.”
Elvira pockets her transmitter and stomps her boot down on the undead.
“Never does it get easy, huh?”
“Yeah. Funny isn’t it? We can do this to former humans, but when it comes to kids… we lost some of our nerves.”
“Would you still do it?”
“Depends on how much they can pay me.”
She replies with the same manner I expect from a merc like her.
The tenements are volatile. Even as we carefully go through the passageways. Accidents happen as some of the teams would burn one part of the tenement, the extended corridors are all over the place and sometimes because of the drywall and plywood everywhere. Things go sideways.
An explosion rocks the tenement. I can smell the gas from somewhere. Our instincts went into override as we dashed to the next block, crossing over a makeshift bridge while shoving the undead rushing at us. The passageways are full. Elvira dashes to the side, leaping on the scaffolding while using her humming blade to a deadly proficiency. My footing is unsteady, but the mindless undead are making the scaffolding creak. Jumping to the side of a balcony, holding the grill of a window, and scaling the side. Elvira swings her humming blade, decapitating a golem. Dropping some chrism oil, lighting them on fire, I took out eta’s spare blade and swung it with all I got, opening a pathway on the concrete firewall.
“Nice!”
Elvira dives in the firewall. I looked at the broken spare blade and tossed it to the side. Drawing Riki’s blade, the one I purchased, suijin. I move forward while avoiding the undead. Elvira’s cutting them to ribbons, but we ran out chrism oil and fire so we have to cut and retreat. She shouldered a thin plywood over and almost fell to the ground full of undead clawing at the buildings. Twisting her body, her augments made sharp sounds, as she used her prosthetic to reach the opposite edge. Firing the grappler on my gauntlet, I swung over, and retrieved the hook.
“Seriously, so much gear and you rarely use yours.”
“I lost a sword.”
“It was just a spare and using it on the firewall is your fault isn't it?”
Blades are expensive and honestly the gauntlet is just to block out attacks. The claws are easily dulled when you use them since they aren’t vibro-blade or high-frequency where you can use them as long as the battery cell is intact and active. Still, I rather wear out the gauntlet's talons than the blade I'm holding. I put my suijin back to its sheath and then grabbed onto a shovel. Following Elvira out on the 13th floor of the tenement. We saw an exit point and what seems to be an exit way for the bikes and food carts. Elvira takes a leap, gently breaking her roll with a fall. Taking my feet out of the asphalt road. I followed her out of the tenement and entered an open courtyard full of abandoned stalls. The rotten skewers and food displayed here means the undead rushed without them being able to take it. It’s been exposed to miasma as well, making it hard to even smell the stench even with the respiratory mask on.
Back on the CENTER. We made a full report of the purging process. The one leading purge, Inquisitor Noah is skimming through the report, skipping the descriptions to read the conclusions. He is a tall man wearing the cloth of his God while armed to the teeth like a warrior from hell. The only report he didn’t skip is from the team who performed the last rites to the minors.
“Did you give them their last rites?”
“We did.”
“Fast?”
“Yes.”
“I see. God… will understand why you did it.”
The team who did it nodded their heads curtly and left to rest. They are probably going to stay out of the field. Their faces look like they ate shit. The dullness in their eyes made everyone avoid them.
After the report, I got to where our space is and found Eta cleaning the gore off her blade. Elvira takes her jacket off and checks on her prosthetic.
“Yo, Assistant. Can you help me?”
I moved and checked the housing unit of her chrome. Most of it is intact and the only problem is the bits of gore stuck in the gap between her arm.
“You know, Assistant. Are you sure you really are from our office?”
Kei cracks her neck. Somehow, I can tell she’s rather pissed off by something. Eta shrugs her shoulders and checks on her regenerated arm too.
“I think so?”
“Then stop helping that bitch.”
“Kinda rude, Kei. It's not my fault I have to go and help you out.”
Elvira’s helping us out not exactly because of kindness. We’re associates here, but she’s doing this to get a bit more in her paycheck after accepting the 7S's request. And even though their relationship can be quite… troublesome. She’s a professional who can do it for the sake of the paycheck. I don’t really mind her, but that is not the case for Kei and Eta here who have bad dealings with her. Thankfully, Elvira's not petty enough to retort while on the job.
After a short rest. I got my dimenbag full of chrism oil again and got out with Elvira again. Eta’s protecting Kei while sorting through the data they got from the field about the concrete man. They're on intel duty while we are always out to do some cleansing.
“You ever curious about my relationship with those two?”
“Not really. I don’t pry.”
“I worked with them. They are good friends and capable comrades… but you saw it. They are ambitionless. You fit in with them because you are quite ambitionless too.”
“I disagree. I just know when to step out of the light.”
“Bothers me how you are so casual about this. For a man who willingly spent years in debt-slavery… you sure have no desire. It’s disgusting hearing it. Honestly, it makes me want to spit on you and throw you to the undead. Ambitionless bastards… I loathe them.”
“That so?”
Elvira shrugs at the professional demeanor I'm wearing on my face and walks to the table handing out the info on where we’ll have to purge again. It’s not like it isn’t true either. If I had any ambitions. I’d be doing harder jobs and tasks to improve my resume. But in this era? Trying to improve your resume is a russian roulette. One day you might just encounter a creature you have no idea how to handle and when that time comes. You’ll realize there’s nothing wrong with being such a cowardly piece of shit.
I put the thought on the back of my mind. I followed Elvira to Zone 19 and looked at the stacks of shacks forming a staircase. It smells rotten. Like a mixture of feces and blood hanging in the air. My respirator filter barely could handle it. The team ahead is methodically checking the turns and the corners and yet even as professionals as they are.
Sometimes the coin flip doesn’t go your way.
Tendrils of flesh reinforced with concrete punctures through armor. I block with my gauntlet as feel my back hitting plywood. Pulling myself up, I swung my gauntlet’s talons on the incoming attack and then jumped to the side. A flesh orb, the size of a 2-story house rolls over. Our associates distanced themselves, opening fire, and yet the concrete armor and the soft bouncy flesh under the concrete made it easy for the flesh to deflect them.
Elvira rushes forward. She swipes her blade upward and tears through the concrete with her humming blade. I block the incoming on her side and then skip back, adjusting my position to a spot where I can anticipate and block while keeping out of the gunfire coming from our associates.
I can hear another coin flip inside my head. I twisted my body around and barely avoided the tendril. Elvira, who was in a slashing position, got her left side torn. Her augments spilled out. She was barely able to hold herself up as red and blue blood spilled out of her body. Another tendril tore through her thigh and I barely got to swipe my talons at the other tendril trying to take her neck.
A team charges forward, blocking the tendril. I took out a medicinal foam from my dimenbag and sprayed it on the part of her body that was torn.
I dragged her to the side and took out my pistol just in case she has the undead infection, changing the mags to non-explosive rounds before checking her for any signs of turning.
“Any infection?”
“Can’t say yet.”
She got hit badly by the concrete reinforced tendril so it’s hard to get an analysis.
“Slot in. I need you to run a diagnosis…. Can’t do it because of obvious reasons.”
She points at the slot on her head. I took my transmitter out while dragging her behind the team gunning down the tendrils. I plugged my transmitter on the slot behind her left ear and activated angel mode.
“You are connected to the Angel Network. How May I help you, today?”
“Need a diagnosis for Agent Elvira.”
“Diagnosing.”
The transmitter loads data. Behind me the teams are finishing off the tendril, their volcano rounds melting the rolling ball of flesh and concrete into a puddle of flesh.
“Internals are compromised. Detected medicinal foam. Left kidney, left lung, is damaged. Internals are critical.”
“Check for undead infection.”
“None.”
“Diagnosis?”
“Please escort the injured to a medical service for immediate service. The life support device on her heart will keep her active until all power cells on her augments shut down. Will you allow me to know your location?”
“Do it.”
“Location is currently out of service. Placing a waypoint for transport where service is available.”
Elvira smiles irritatingly while listening to the bot.
“Well, I just jinxed myself. I’ll pay. Escort me and I will pay you.”
“Sure, you know my link.”
I accepted the request and plucked my transmitter's wire from her neck. Carrying Elvira to the CENTER, I had the ones escorting the refugees take her out of the LANES. I got my initial payment and informed Eta and Kei about what happened. Their faces were rather pleased about what happened to Elvira.
The purges resumed for the next four days. By the fifth day, we were running out of Agents and Associates who are willing to advance to the fort where the Scourge is.
