Mission Starts

“WHOOSH” The sound of the parachutes flapping in the air sounded in the quiet night as the group landed on the ground and immediately got on guard grabbing their weapons.

“West clear” Micheal immediately after landing turning on his night vision helmet and discovering that there were no nearby enemies.

“East clear” Henry also cleared up the East.

“North clear” Bai cleared up the north.

“South clear” Hai also finally cleared up the south side.

“No enemies around then, everyone turn on your maps and follow behind me, eyes on the surroundings, once you spot an enemy, alert the rest of us before you attack” Micheal instructed the others, his previous seriousness disappearing as he grabbed his gun and followed the route on the map.

“Roger” The rest replied following behind him with one line, with Micheal at the lead and the others behind him observing their whole environment.

They walked from the drop-off location through the desert-like land toward the location of zone one itself, after walking for some time without spotting any enemies, they spotted the walls of the zone, after everything that happened, the zones were created in a way that all around it, walls surrounded it like strongholds but there were several entrances to the city, the exterior section looked like a stronghold but the interior was like a normal huge city, fortunately for the group, the zone one which was closest to the wildlands was smaller in size compared to the other bases, it was more like a base of operation that was situated just at the mouth of the wildlands.

It was positioned there to be the first force that whatever threat that would emerge from the wildlands would encounter, due to this it was held as a base of main operations and was equipped with state-of-the-art equipment and artillery that would serve as protection for the Zone, so for it to have ended up in this state meant that whatever was responsible for this was something else, something very dangerous.

“We’re here, stay alert and keep your eyes out” Micheal instructed once again as they arrived at the huge gates which had a huge hole in the center which they climbed through onto the other side where they immediately went on guard.

“Clear” Henry said receiving a nod from Micheal who gave the go-ahead to the brothers who nodded and walked stealthily toward the control tower of the gates, when they arrived, they looked around for any enemies, and only when they saw that there were no enemies did they signal for the others to come over.

“Yoshi scan for any life signals in a 50-meter radius” Micheal said to Yoshi who nodded as his eyes lighted up and moved in a 360 degrees motion before coming to a stop at its original location.

“No sighs of life” Yoshi gave his findings to Micheal who frowned and went into thought, his eyes turning to the entrance of the control tower.

“I don’t know if it's because we just arrived but it seems weird that we haven’t seen anyone yet, not even a zombie or something like that” Micheal frowned and said to the others who nodded thinking the same.

“Yeah, you’re right, it is strange” Hai replied while thinking.

“Well, we don’t have the time and luxury to wait around hoping for the answer to hit us, we only have three days, I think we should cover more ground while we have the chance but first, we should explore the tower, we might find answers there” Micheal suggested to the others while glancing at the tower that sat before them.

“I agree, I mean they do have security cameras so maybe we could tap into their database and see what happened” Yoshi also nodded his head at Micheal’s suggestion.

“Then I think it’s decided then, let’s go” Bai replied and without wasting any time, grabbed his gun as he and the others cautiously ascended the tower where something sinister was awaiting them at the top.

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The tower was a little large, with several rooms on each floor, the group entered the ground floor where a disturbing scene could be seen, the rooms were messed up as a fight had happened there, and bullet holes could be seen in the walls, blood was spawned across the walls and floor, some of the doors were broken down and the lights flickered on and off, this looked like a scene straight out of a horror movie and it was enough to send chills down anyone’s back but the group here presently were hardcore fighters who had seen a lot of death and blood, they had also encountered a lot of near-death experiences so they were only slightly irritated by this scene.

“I don’t like this at all” Racheal remarked staring at the scene before her in disgust, a frown plastered on her face as she recalled familiar memories.

“You’ve all realized it by now too” Henry said glancing at the faces of the others, already guessing the same thought was going through their minds.

“Yeah, where are the bodies?” Micheal said, giving out the thought on everybody’s minds. Since the time they had arrived, they hadn’t seen a single body, not even a piece of flesh.

“Some very wrong is happening here and we have to find out what, spread out and search all the rooms, assemble back here in a minute” Micheal instructed before turning to the closest room.

“Wait!” Bai said making the others pause and turn to him.

“What is it?” Hai turned to his brother who frowned.

“You really think we should split up, I mean that’s how the people get killed in horror movies” Bai replied causing his brother to facepalm.

“The hell is wrong with you Bai, one, we don’t have time, and two, yeah it’s dangerous but also necessary to cover more ground, now quit being a scaredy cat and move” Micheal said before walking into the room behind him.

“I’m not scared, just worried that’s all, ugh, screw it” Bai said and then shrugged when the others left too.

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“Okay, so any progress?” Micheal asked after they all assembled together.

“Nope, still nothing, no bodies, and no cameras” Henry replied, the others also agreeing with him which meant that it was the same with them too.

“Wait where’s Bai?” Yoshi asked, now bringing our minds to the realization that Bai hadn’t returned together with the rest.

“Guys I found something” Bai’s voice sounded as he rushed out of the room with a serious face.

“What is it?” The others asked rushing to him with caution.

“I found a half-eaten sandwich” Bai replied showing them the rotten sandwich which was in his hands.

“Really, a half-eaten sandwich” Henry said in shock rolling his eyes.

“Actually it’s not that bad, Yoshi can you scan the sandwich for the last time it was eaten and the DNA sample if it still exists” Micheal suggested after thinking, he glanced toward Yoshi who nodded and received the sandwich from Bai who grinned as Yoshi’s eyes scanned the sandwich, a blueish light moving across the sandwich before returning back to Yoshi’s eyes.

“The DNA sample has been lost due to the activity of micro bacteria on it so I can’t identify the person who ate this but the last time it was eaten was 5 days ago” Yoshi reported after scanning the sandwich, he then dropped it onto the ground, earning a light glare from Bai.

“Hmmm, five days ago huh, well let’s go to the upper floors, maybe we’ll find the answers there” Micheal said, grabbing his gun and looking around one last time before moving to the upper floors with the others.

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“Aha, finally a system that I can use” Bai exclaimed in excitement after arriving on the first floor and spotting the control center which he rushed to and started operating.

“Uh, I think Yoshi should take care of this, he should be more fluent in things like this” Micheal suggested but paused after being glared at by Bai who continued operating the machine.

“Hmm, this is a little tricky” Bai muttered after operating the control center for some time, he frowned as he continuously tried his best to bring the machine back to life.

“Is there any problem?” Hai asked his brother who sighed as he stepped back and turned around.

“The power source is almost depleted, it’s only enough to power the place but not enough to power this machine” Bai replied with a shrug.

“So there is no way to bring it back?” Henry asked staring at the machine.

“If we had a DC power source that could provide enough juice to kick it back to life, that could work” Bai replied with a sigh patting the dead machine.

“Can I try?” Yoshi asked stepping up to the machine.

“Of course, you can try too but it will be a waste of ti…” Bai nodded stepping out of the way for Yoshi to also try to kick it back, before he could even finish speaking, the sound of the control center coming back to life sounded which made his words get stuck in his throat.

“That was surprisingly easy” Racheal muttered in astonishment after seeing Yoshi flawlessly refuel the dead control center.

“Hey, how did…..huh?” Bai was speechless, he only stared at Yoshi who navigated through the database of the control center.

“Okay searching for camera footage, huh, what’s this?” Yoshi frowned after some time of operating the machine.

“What’s wrong Yoshi?” Micheal asked after hearing Yoshi’s distressed voice.

“Someone wiped the database clean of the camera footage, someone intentionally did this” Yoshi replied with a frown, turning to face the others.

“What! Someone did this intentionally?” Racheal asked not understanding if she heard Yoshi right.

“Yeah someone, wiped the whole database clean, as if trying to hide what happened, and the person who did this really knows what he did, he wiped the backup drives too so there’s no way for me to obtain the lost files” Yoshi said shaking his head in disappointment, he was also surprised at his realization.

“We just got here and shit already got real, this seems like some conspiracy shit’s going on” Henry remarked while fidgeting a little, his eyes inspecting the room suspiciously like he was being watched.

“Okay let’s not jump to conclusions yet, Bai, is there anything else you could do to try to maybe recover any of the footage?” Micheal said to calm everyone down and then turned to Bai who grinned at his words.

“Well since Yoshi couldn’t do it, I don’t have much confidence but I could try a little trick I learned back in the day, just in case though, I’m not giving any assurances” Bai replied before once again walking up to the control center where he turned serious as he operated it trying his best to recover at least some of the lost footage.

“Okay the rest of us will look around for anything that could point us in the right direction” Micheal said patting Bai’s shoulder before turning around to properly survey the room with the others, they looked around to see the same scene from the previous floors, a blood-splattered room with furniture thrown all around it.

“Hmmm” Hai squinted his eyes at something glittering on the ground, he crouched to pick it up and discovered that it was a ring, but it wasn’t any ring, it had a diamond on it which glittered slightly and seemed to pull you in, the surface of it had a strange carving on it, this was of a snake eating itself, seeing someone approaching him, Hai quickly placed the ring within his pocket, hiding it before the person could spot it.

“Hey, I got something” Bai’s voice suddenly sounded which brought him out of his daze as he got up and quickly hid it before walking over to see what Bai had discovered.

“Back in the days, when I was busy hacking government servers, I learned a lot about them” Bai explained to the others who had gathered around him curiously.

“Wait, I heard about that, that was you, oh damn” Henry suddenly interjected with a grin, remembering something he had heard back before everything had gone to shit, he had heard the news about an Asian hacker who had been arrested for hacking into the government’s server.

“Oh yeah me too, that’s cool” Racheal also added remembering that news too.

“Well, what can I say, I taught him everything he knows” Hai chuckled staring at his brother who shook his head with a light laugh.

“You couldn’t do what I do in a million years, I’m the b—“ Bai was about to brag when he was interrupted by Micheal.

“Could you get back to what you discovered, we don’t have much time” Micheal said impatiently causing Bai to sigh.

“So as I was saying, I learned a lot about the servers, one thing I learned was that the government always had a backup for the backup, so even if the backup was destroyed, there’s still a way to get it, and that’s from the main server, which is located at the heart of the zone” Bai continued his explanation, still operating the machine.

“So does that mean that you need to get to the heart of the zone to be able to recover the footage?” Hai asked his brother with a frown.

“No it only means that whatever move we make here will be detected on the main server” Yoshi answered on behalf of Bai who gave a light nod.

“So is that a problem?” Henry asked in confusion.

“If the person who wiped out the footage is behind all this and is at the main server, the slightest move we make will reveal our presence which is a very risky move since we don’t even know what we’re dealing with” Micheal sighed, and thought about Bai’s words deeply, making plans in his mind.

“So what do we do now? Do we recover the lost documents, if we do that, we would only have a few minutes in the system before the self-destruct is initiated, to shut me off as a self-defense mechanism” Bai said to Micheal who frowned trying to make a decision.

“Mike, the decision is up to you” Yoshi said as all eyes turned to Micheal who remained calm, showing that he was used to these types of situations, he was the perfect leader for the group since he had been through a lot of leadership roles over the years.

“There are two explanations now, first is that the person wiped the database clean to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, and second is that the person who did this is related to the spreading infection, anyway we have to find out what we’re dealing with so my final decision is to…” Micheal said, the others listening intently as he paused putting them in suspense.

“…do it” Micheal concluded making a decision that would determine their future in the zone.