Chapter 20 (1/2)
Chapter 20
Maybe when a person's luck hit rock bottom, out of the depths of misfortune would come bliss. Or maybe after escaping from death, one was bound to have good fortune. Zhou Rong pushed his combat awareness to its limit. With his rifle, he looked around the corner of the corridor, but discovered that there were barely any zombies present.
Chuncao shot down a few of the living dead, frowning, ”What's going on? Are they all in hiding?”
The lights in the corridor had all gone down, and it was pitch black. Zhou Rong swung the flashlight around, but the entire pa.s.sageway was empty.
A dim red light flashed from the door of an office in the distance — that was the Secret Communications Satellite Room, their objective.
”Stay vigilant,” Zhou Rong said quietly, almost whispering. ”A 100 metres away in the 12 o'clock direction. Si Nan, prepare the explosives.”
Three people stood in a row. Zhou Rong led the way, Chuncao took the tail, and Si Nan took over carrying Zhang Yingjie. They cautiously made their way forward, glued to the wall.
Zhou Rong's feet suddenly stopped.
”What happened?” Si Nan asked softly.
Zhou Rong did not respond. His fingers glided past the demolished wall, the flashlight carefully sweeping past the bricks that had shattered into dust and the rebars that had bent in, and shone ahead.
”Here, what do you think this looks like?” He asked a moment later.
Under the yellow light, long scratches stretched along the wall, towards the dark.
Si Nan's expression changed subtly. ”… Claw marks from a beast.”
Zhou Rong nodded, speaking succinctly. ”This may be the reason why there are few zombies here. Move carefully.”
With an arm supporting Zhang Yingjie on his shoulder, Si Nan reached for the explosives in his bag with the other arm. Turning around a corner, Zhou Rong confirmed that the staircase was empty before signalling Si Nan to move forward as he pointed at the entrance glowing with a red light.
”… Zhou Rong,” Si Nan spoke up suddenly.
Zhou Rong swept his gaze sharply through their surroundings, not looking back. ”What do you want? You always call me Rong-ge when you need something and Zhou Rong when you don't, you're picky with your food, lazy, and always thinking about having a hot shower, when I criticise you you'll whisper into my ear and want a hug. You can't always act so spoiled…”
”The door is open.” Si Nan said.
Zhou Rong turned around abruptly.
The door to the satellite communication room was wide open, the debris of the bricks piled up waist high. The metal door lay quietly in the ruins, twisted into a shape that was difficult to describe.
”…” Zhou Rong's eyes slowly drifted about the room. In the dark, countless racks had toppled onto the ground, bodies that had been torn apart were strewn all over the place. At the control station all the way inside, a large patch of blood splatters could be seen.
”… Very good,” Zhou Rong spoke composedly. ”We save an explosive today.”
There were two principles with regards to the satellite communication room. One, was to maintain its secrecy. Two, was about its urgency.
When disaster struck, the forces would quickly withdraw into this heavily guarded building with its metal door. They would then send a signal for help through the satellite to other military bases as they tracked the situation through the cameras, searching for survivors in Zone A.
However, this fortress had still been invaded. The three people stepped over the debris, their flashlights s.h.i.+ning about the room. All over the floor were bodies torn apart by a beast, all heavily decomposed.
”Major General Qian,” Chuncao suddenly called aloud.
In front of the dim, glowing monitors, a body in a military uniform lay across the control station. His eyes were wide open, his blood and organs already dried. His wrinkled hands hung down limply, his gleaming Type-64 submachine gun already slid down to the ground.
Zhou Rong stopped, silently exhaling after a long time. Slowly raising his arm, he saluted at the corpse that had not died in peace.
”The head of 118. He was over sixty years of age, and he could have retired long ago. He said that he could still work for a few more years. As new blood would be entering 118 next year, he was worried about not being at the helm, and wanted to personally watch over it one more time…”
In the chaosa, Si Nan found a chair that still had all four legs attached, placing the deeply asleep Zhang Yingjie on it. Carrying the machine gun, Chuncao sighed gloomily, ”At that time when Rong-ge had nowhere to go, it was him who pounded the table and pulled Rong-ge into 118. Leader Qian was not a flawless person, but he really understood people…”
”Why did Zhou Rong have nowhere to go?” Si Nan asked.
”I'm not sure, I heard that he had offended someone in the central authorities.”
Si Nan nodded. Chuncao noticed his expression and asked in curiosity, ”What are you thinking about?”
The two of them held their rifles, on alert, searching through the remains of the corpses strewn about the satellite communication room. Si Nan turned his head to glance at Zhou Rong, who was sitting at the control station with his back towards them, then smiled slightly, ”I was only thinking… Zhou Rong's the type to approach people according to their character, he can still offend others?”
Zhou Rong took Major General Qian's identification card from his body. After scanning it, he managed to log into the cla.s.sified communications program and sighed deeply.
The communication logs displayed across the screen in order of secrecy, source, department and date. Zhou Rong filtered out those that were not as highly cla.s.sified, and started reading through the ones that were left. The dim light from the monitor reflected upon his resolute and handsome face.
”15/09/2019, 14:27, GMT+8
Squads 1 and 4 of 118 have been confirmed to have perished. Contact with Squad 2 has been lost.”
”16/09/2019, 20:37, GMT+8
Squad 3 of 118 have been confirmed to have perished. Contact with Squad 8 has been lost.”
”17/09/2019, 16:26, GMT+8
Squads 5 and 7 of 118 have been recalled. Unable to confirm the location of Flight DC918 and Target Z.”
”18/09/2019, 18:29, GMT+8
Target Z is missing, research progress in B Military Zone has stagnated. The research has decided to start work on the S-level virus sample.”
Unknowingly, Zhou Rong's brows leapt up.
He knew that Target Z was the mission objective that the special forces of Unit 118 had been ordered to capture. It seemed like Squad 6 was not the only one who went on a wild goose chase, the other seven squads had all been completely destroyed or failed in their mission.
— However, the virus sample?
The source of the zombie virus could currently be rated as humanity's enigma. Where did B Military Zone get the S-level virus sample — Could it be that before this shelter had collapsed, humanity had already discovered the source of the zombie virus?!
Zhou Rong's fingers trembled non-stop, and he quickly went to the next page.
”28/09/2019, 01:23, GMT+8
A breakthrough has been made in the a.n.a.lysis of the virus and biological experiments. Proto-antibodies have been obtained from the gorilla, observation of the injection experiment is in progress.”
Zhou Rong's eyes were fixed to the word ”anti-bodies”, until he saw the next communication log that had yet to be sent. The date was the same as the previous one: 28/09/2019, 20:25, GMT+8.
”Playing with fire will eventually get you burnt. Although we had expected it when we started work on the S-level virus sample, we did not think that the consequences would come so quickly.