AZU-1: Lifehack (11 page)

As time passed the debate about what to
do about Autar began to fade into the academic.

~~~~~

Chapter 15: Understaffed

~~~~~

Captain Alisia Terone had been
stationed at Autar for roughly a year. She had been posted to a
team whose duty it was to enter the city and put as many of the
zombies to rest as they could.

She had seen them interviewed on the
news, they were heroes. That was what the public saw. Heroes doing
their best to make things right in Autar.

The reality was a little different
however. These missions were now regarded by superior officers to
be token gestures. “We’re doing something, we’re fighting hard!”
When Alisia joined, it was a whole four person team fighting
hard.

Sometimes not so hard. She had
suspected that less dedicated members had given up. The density of
zombies never seemed to change, the city always supplying a
consistent supply of resistance.

Disheartened members of the team would
sometimes squeeze off more rounds then needed. When their ammo ran
low it was easy to say “Well, that’s today’s work done. Let’s go
back.”

On the other hand, distracted members
tended to die. A cautious, well armed, well trained soldier had
little to fear scavenging easy kills in the outer areas, but
getting sloppy still ran you the risk of getting killed.

A member would die, get a medal, a
burial, and an honourable mention on the news. The burial would
sometimes be a coffin of bricks if the claimed soldier wandered
into a mob of his new allies.

Alisia’s mother would call her and fret
for a while. A new member would be assigned to the team. The
gung-ho ones burned out quicker than the sloppy ones. Some
requested to be transferred out. This didn’t get you a medal or a
mention on the news, but no one seemed to mind.

Alisia survived by not being sloppy; by
not being gung-ho. She survived by being professional, and not
thinking of her missions as token gestures.

But the replacements gradually stopped
coming. The team, which had become her team, seemed to be no one’s
priority anymore. The gunner guard kept the public safe, and that
was enough for the brass. Quietly, her team became a team of one.
One pretty redhead to show up on the news now and then wearing the
Autar guard’s blue camouflage, to be the token hero. Not that she
liked it that way.

With or without faith from the brass,
she intended to make her futile missions count. Every round fired
from her rifle flew with the purpose to make the dead stay
dead.

Today, a token of faith
arrived.

“
Major?” Alisia asked,
coming to a halt before the Major’s desk. The Major was a weathered
man with a trim, peppered beard. His desk was a cluttered but
organized array of papers threatening to overtake his keyboard.
Alisia noticed a younger woman to the side of the room in a
textbook attention stance. She was in the blue uniform. Her big
blue eyes and chin-length, light brown hair reminded Alisia of a
mouse.

“
Yeah, Terone. I finally got
around to arranging replacements for your team.” The Major
earmarked a spot in his paperwork, and turned his attention to the
matter at hand. “Captain Terone, meet Private Tracy
Kensington.”

“
Sir!” Private Kensington
chirped.

Alisia glared at Private Kensington for
a moment then slowly slid her stare towards the Major. “One
Private? Please don’t tell me that’s it.”

“
For now it is,” the Major
calmly replied.

Alisia sighed. “I’ve been trying to
expand the team for ... ever, and now I’m down to me and a little
bitty Private? They’re gonna chew her up in no time flat.” Alisia’s
assessment made Private Tracy Kensington shift uncomfortably, but
no one was paying attention to her to notice.

“
Well, it’s your job as her
commanding officer to make sure that doesn’t happen.” The Major’s
tone had a distinct “That’s the way it is” ring to it. Alisia
stormed out down the hall, and before disappearing around a corner
she turned back with a bark. “Private Kensington! Are you coming or
not?!”

Tracy Kensington jumped in shock,
darting her eyes between the Major and the Captain.

“
I think you’d best get
going, Private.” the Major sighed.

Tracy caught up to Alisia around the
corner, finding her leaning with her back against the wall, looking
angry but calm. Tracy faced Alisia, and snapped to
attention.

Alisia sighed. “Ooh-kay, kid. Rule
number one. Relax.” She looked up at Tracy, still at attention.
“Relax was an order. At ease, and stay there.” Tracy tried very
hard to relax.

“
Rule number two. I don’t
know if you were calling me or the Major ‘Sir’, but don’t do it to
me. Captain will do. Got it?”

“
Yes Captain!”

Alisia sighed. “If that’s out of the
way, I wanna apologize about what I said in there. I’m not going to
let you get chomped. I have had people die under my command, but in
most cases it was because of excessive stupidity on their parts.
Not to speak ill of the dead, but it’s true. With only two of us,
we’re not about to split up so you’d have to be acting really
stupid to get killed with me watching your back. Are you
stupid?”

“
Uh, no, Sir.” Tracy
stammered.

Alisia smiled to herself “You might be.
You just called me ‘Sir’ again, after I told you not to.” Tracy
stood silent.

“
Oh, lighten up a bit.”
Alisia revealed her smile much to the relief of the Private.
“Alright. See me in my office tomorrow morning, and I’ll brief you.
Dismissed.”

“
Oh-six-hundred hours,
Captain?”

“
Holy shit no, Private! What
do you think this is? The army?”

“
Uh, yes..
Captain...?”

“
We make our own hours,
kiddo. We don’t get no respect, but we get quite a bit of freedom.
Now scram, will ya?”

“
Uh, yes, Captain!” And with
that, the bewildered Private wandered off.

Alisia breezed into her office
fashionably late to find Tracy sitting in perfect posture, waiting
patiently.

“
Hey Kensington. That sounds
kinda odd- can I call you Kenny?” Alisia sat at her seat, and threw
her feet onto the desk.

“
Uh- that’s a boy’s
name..”

“
Aw c’mon, all the cool kids
have a nickname.” Alisia teased.

“
Wha... what’s yours, Sir?
Tracy cautiously inquired.

“
Arg! It sure as hell isn’t
‘Sir’! My nickname? You’re not high enough rank to know that. So?
Kenny?”

“
Uh, alright Captain, if you
say so.” It beat the nicknames they handed out in basic training.
Thus did Tracy Kensington come to be known as Kenny. It was
something she regretted almost instantly.

“
Alright Kenny, down to
business. Fighting zombies. What do you know?”

“
Well,” Tracy started,
“Hollow point rounds are generally used, but no grenades.” She
paused. “But I don’t know why.”

“
Well,” Alisia
explained,”normal bullets make a hole and if you’re lucky, an exit
wound. Zombies don’t generally give a rat’s ass about that kind of
injury, because for whatever reason, zombies don’t need to rely on
their organs to live. A hollow point reliably causes a big enough
mess to actually break apart chunks of the target, removing their
ability to move, or at least move effectively. A lost leg will take
them out of immediate hazard, unless they’re close enough to crawl
and grab. Arms are good to take off, too. A walking torso with a
mouth is pretty easy to avoid, but it’s never bad to get the head
too. Basically, you just need to disassemble them until they stop
coming. Simple headshots used to work pretty good, but I’ve been
having less and less luck with that.”

Tracy took a moment to absorb the new
tactics, and tried hard not to visualize it too vividly. “And
grenades? Wouldn’t that be ideal?”

“
Yeah, they would, but for
some reason they’re totally off limits. I don’t know why.” This had
been a standing order since the outbreak. “Ok, we have the basics
of offense covered. Now for defense. If you go into hostile
territory, how do you protect yourself, Kenny?”

Tracy responded seamlessly. “Avoid open
spaces, stick to smaller areas when you can, use the environment
for cover to be unseen, and become less of a target.”

“
Correct,” Alisia chirped,
“Now forget that entirely. Zombies don’t use guns and they don’t
train snipers. The only risk to open areas is being seen. When you
are seen, you want some space between you and the zombie. They’re
slow, but they’re strong. You must debilitate incoming zombies
before they get to you. Hand to hand is not impossible against a
zombie, but just trust me that you’d rather not risk it. Their
strength is also part of why you don’t go into tight spaces. I’ve
seen stronger ones break through some pretty thick walls to get at
a person, even when a door was just a meter away. Oh yeah, most of
em are dumb. So keep in the open and just keep your eyes peeled.
Infra red won’t help you because they don’t give off any body
heat.”

Tracy studiously crammed the new
information into her head. “Oh! What about infection?”

“
Yeah, don’t get bit. You
get zombie slobber in your blood, and at best, we’ll have to toss
you into observation. Been there, done that.”

“
You’ve been
infected?”

“
Yeah, well-“ Alisia was
interrupted by her comm. She tapped the little device that cuddled
her ear. “Captain Terone here.”

“
Captain, we have an
interesting anomaly on the top deck.” It was the Major.

“
Oh?” Alisia put the comm on
the table and turned it up so Tracy could hear.

“
About fifteen minutes ago,
random VTags have been springing up in a concentrated
area.”

“
So? A zombie probably found
some discarded goggles, and has been playing with the buttons.”
Alisia spoke of the hypothetical zombie as if it were a
toddler.

“
That was the first hunch of
the snipers, but when they tried to track it down, they spotted a
moving IR signature.”

“
I see. A zombie playing
with a car maybe?” Alisia was stretching it.

“
Well, possible, but not
very likely. VTags or a moving IR signature are interesting enough,
but both...?”

“
Alright Major, we’ll suit
up ASAP, and go hunting.”

“
Very good,
Captain.”

Alisia tapped the comm off, put it back
in her ear, and shot a sheepish smile at Tracy.
“Giddyup!”

~~~~~

Chapter 16: Warm Welcome

~~~~~

The south doors lurched open slowly,
spreading the visage of the city to Tracy Kensington for the first
time. It didn’t look this big from on top of the wall. Even from
this distance the cornerstone buildings and their bridges seemed to
reach towards you ominously. With ‘boots on the ground’, it was
suddenly a lot less hypothetical. She was going in
today.

Alisia stepped forward and made one
last equipment check on the two of them.

P90s, chosen for the sheer volume of
hollow points they could pump quickly, and the availability of
salvageable ammo in the city. It also made a good smashing weapon
in a pinch.

Custom Magnum Desert Eagles, donated by
Magum Research after Alisia made a comment on the news that she was
a fan of their pistols.

Good basic combat knives that didn’t
see much action, but were handy in a utilitarian way.

The most interesting toy was Alisia’s
one of a kind ‘Bad Mojo’. It was a fairly bulky experimental
weapon. Alisia wasn’t quite sure how her team ended up with it, but
she didn’t complain when she inherited it from a retiring comrade.
It definitely looked more like an experiment than a mass-produced
weapon. It took two hands to aim its heft, and lacked any proper
grip on the front end.

Using magnetic rails, the Bad Mojo
hurtled a single projectile that shatters into an immense number of
fragments. Technically it wasn’t a grenade launcher, so it snuck by
the ‘no explosives’ rule. The ammo was hard to requisition, so
Alisia didn’t use it often, but it was invaluable to break up a mob
when she got cut off.

Satisfied that the rookie hadn’t
forgotten anything, Alisia turned to face Autar once again. To
Alisia, it was a very familiar sight, even though she had never
been in very deep. In an average mission, Alisia would go in far
enough to find a few mobs of zombies and use up most of her ammo,
then leave.

Today was different however. There was
a much more specific objective, and it meant going deep. Corporal
Parker, manning a tower zipper, was assigned to assist Alisia and
Kensington; to keep an eye on them as much as he could and to
assist with tracking.

Alisia started walking towards the city
fringes, and Tracy followed. “Parker. You with us?”

“
Yes Sir, ma’am. I see ya.
You’re still really close, and this scope zooms great. I can damn
near see down your shirt.”