There was a second of doubt when the group was making the last details before lifting the lockdown. With the barricades in place made out of furniture and everything they needed on the monorail, it was time to start the show.
"Ok, when I click this key, the mission will start. We need to run toward the monorail, and from there I will start it. Are you guys ready?" Olivia muttered, her finger about to press Enter to send the last command line.
The man took a deep breath, as this was his first time using a gun on something alive. He was actually too eager to do it to be healthy. "As ready as I can get!" Max yelled, grabbing his shotgun firmly between his hands.
"This is not my first time doing a last stand!" Ange added with a cheerful smile.
A finger movement later, and the emergency lights were replaced by a sickly white radiance. After this, a loud clunk sound made it clear that the automatic doors had opened. It was time to run.
Gunshots echo through the corridor as Max shot the zombies that were getting in the way, flooding the network of underground tunnels with their bodies, just to get quickly thrown to the ground with the explosive power of his shotgun.
They didn't need to die, just to fall to the ground and make an improvised barricade with their bodies.
The young man's new nerves and muscles were flaring up to the maximum, working as hard as they could. He was moving so fast and aiming so quickly that it was even a little hard for his mind to process all this information. There was no doubt that Max would have died if he hadn't made these changes a few hours ago.
Olivia was in charge of the more precise strikes. The girl's precision was almost perfect, as she could easily read the movements of the zombies and then shoot them in the head, anticipating where they would be.
On the back was Ange being just Ange, stabbing and mutilating everything that got too close to the team's posterior.
They reached the monorail station without problems, but with Olivia quickly jumping inside the vehicle and rushing toward the cabin, only Ange and Max were left standing to hold the line.
The macabre composition of multiple arms stitched together quickly cut a rope made out of recycled zombie clothes that made dozens of metal chairs and tables fall on the doorway that connected the rest of the bunker to this location. An improvised barricade that gave them precious seconds as the horde punched on the new obstacle.
Max managed to take a single breath as he stood on the threshold between the station and the monorail, pointing his gun toward the zombies that were quickly breaking their trap. He then felt Ange running to his side, knives ready to kill whatever was coming out.
"It is so fun being on the survivor side!" She yelled with a wicked smile of sheer joy as the first of the undead managed to drag its body out into her range.
A quick descending strike of her cleaver put an end to that threat, while another was gunned down by Max as the zombies were dripping in slowly.
He was not only getting used to killing but also enjoying it. The infection that was Ange's smile was taking root in him, causing the young man to make a tiny grin while murdering all these infected people.
"Why isn't the monorail starting?!" Max yelled and then shot the last shell loaded in his shotgun. Blood and gore were already caking on the visor of his security guard helmet so much that it was getting hard to see anything that was not blurred movement.
"La concha de la lora!" Olivia yelled with pure frustration as her fist struck the control panel on the monorail cabin.
The girl had miscalculated the lack of maintenance on the vehicle, and she needed to lift multiple security measures to get it working.
Max blinked a few times, pulling out his metal bar and slamming the skull of a zombie with it, letting his gun fall to the ground getting carpeted with zombie corpses. "What did she say?!" He yelled; his Spanish was bad, to say the least.
Ange pulled a knife out of a zombie's chest while her cleaver was sinking into the head of another in this constant coordinated movement. "The cunt of the parrot! She is probably cursing herself!" The biological killing machine yelled as her attention was focused on keeping those monsters outside.
The young man swung his metal bar again, smashing one of the zombies right in the head, but then two took its place. Ange was also getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount alone. It was like seeing a metro station at peak hour with hundreds of people trying to rush into the car at the same time.
Groans, screams, and yells from both the living and the dead mixed together while fluids flew all over the place. Blood, sweat, and saliva were spread by the impact of steel and meat.
"There we go!" Olivia yelled, and then the monorail started; the doors tried to close, but they were unable to, thanks to the sheer amount of corpses and zombies trying to get in. However, the speed at which it was quickly taken made sure to leave the horde behind with only a few stragglers that managed to get inside.
Max just felt into the floor face up, breathing heavily, and his new muscles were giving up after putting down the last zombie. "Ahhhhhhh . . . that was close. . . " he mumbled, ignoring the sensation around his body. Zombie saliva, blood, his own sweat—it was not a pleasant experience.
"Welcome to the super world; we are always close," Olivia added, checking if the duo was fine and getting disappointed that Ange only had a few scratches.
"Hey! Max, did you not unlock any evolution or special goodie?" Ange said while sitting with her legs crossed over three still bleeding corpses.
"No, he didn't," Olivia answered before Max could. She was tired and a little bit frustrated that her mistake had put her team in danger. The girl was more annoyed by her plans failing than by the risk to Ange and Max.
He rolled his eyes, a little bit annoyed by this. "No . . . my power doesn't work like that. I only get a fixed number of evolutions per day," he said, then slowly got up and took a proper seat on one of the monorail benches.
"Oh, so you are a hunker-down type," Ange answered with a curious expression on her face.
"A hunker what?" Max asked, the stench of blood and sweat still firmly gripping his nose.
"Powers have different ways to progress. As a general rule, the more you progress them, the slower they begin to evolve. However, some of them play defense like yours, getting bonuses just for surviving," Olivia explained, taking a good distance from the two since she was the only one with a normal nose. Max had tuned down his sense of smell a little bit, and Ange was just used to this.
"And then you have powers like mine! That gains a bonus per kill or project done," the blood-soaked psycho exclaimed.
"Oh nice, so mine is one of the best ones," Max finally added and began to load his gun again, making sure to be ready for whatever was in hydroponics.
"They are bullshit; your type depends on the situation you are in. If you are in a place where killing people is hard, like in a normal civilized place," Olivia continued her explanation with a tired tone and then made a small pause.
"You would get a more proactive progression like Anathema," the girl added, trying to be subtle with the fact that the monster literally got more powerful the more she killed.
In the past, it was like that; now she had reached the limit of what her power could give to her, just like Olivia. They were max-level characters while Max was just getting out of the tutorial.
"But if you are in a place where surviving each day is extremely hard and killing is as common as going to buy bread, you would get a power like yours or Insight!" Ange finally said, giving a little bit of insight into Olivia's background.
The rest of the trip was just some small talk while the group recovered their strength and cleaned some of the gunk with towels they got from the kitchen.
Five minutes later, the monorail arrived at their location. However, as they were getting closer, they managed to see something strange.
Slowly crawling into their vision through the dim radiance of the emergency light, there was something that made Olivia squirm in disgust, Ange smiled with pure fascination, and Max was just confused.