Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Incomplete Explanations and Unexplained Absences.

The Security level surprisingly didn’t care much for actual security once you were inside their home. No gun turrets and blocked gates. No guard stations and hatches that couldn’t be accessed without clearance since the ambush in the showers. What they did have, was offices. Lots and lots of offices.

And no food. My stomach was starting to think my throat had been cut.

There were water dispensers and coffee urns, but nobody was hiding trail mix and meal bars in their desks. Uncivilized of them. And very unfortunate for me, as I checked yet another bland, mid-level security office.

Desk, hardlined storage, chair, pic frame of family, one each. I wasn’t even sure if they weren’t all the same family, really. Did Security have female officers? It would make sense. But I didn’t know for sure.

I’d seen them as such a needless annoyance that I hadn’t paid much attention to them as individuals. Human beings with families. Maybe kids. The one thing I was able to determine, other than a strictly enforced office policy of zero lunch breaks at your desk, was that they hadn’t made a stand here where they were protected. They’d been elsewhere. Possibly protecting other people on the station. Before they all got infected like everyone else, of course.

Maybe they were even some of the first to succumb. Being on the front lines and all. I kept searching to make sure there weren’t any more hidden zombies to pop up on my when I least expected it. The one I’d forgotten about that had been chewing on my leg bothered me. That wasn’t the only thing that bothered me.

I remembered Security having a number of heavy combat suits. Those things looked like space armor. Probably because they were space armor. One of the other researchers helped design the thing, or part of it and had a habit of bragging about his contribution. He’d created a better feedback system for the armor allowing it to grip things like criminals that one didn’t want to squish, gently but firmly.

That was apparently pretty important when one was piloting a machine that can bend heavy gauge steel into a pretzel with just its gauntleted fingers.

My question was, how did we lose the station if we had those when the zombies couldn’t chew through the admittedly tough emergency suit I was wearing? Another irritating mystery.

The offices finally came to an end as I crossed into a different section. There were doors numbered one to fifteen to my right and a single one to the left with a sign on it that said “Cells: Block A.” I had absolutely no interest in going to jail so I tried the numbered doors.

They turned out to lead to an armory. This section was secured- rather, it normally was. Behind door number one was a thoroughly smushed body. Beyond the corpse was a combat suit covered in what appeared to be old, dried blood. Inside the suit was a zombie that looked asleep like the ones in the cafeteria had been, hibernating I suppose.

My first thought was “how did a zombie get into a combat suit?”

I may have spent a little too long staring.

It looked like the poor bastard that had propped the security gate open had then been grabbed by the zombie in the combat suit, who then attempted to eat him. Much like the security zombie I’d shot it couldn’t get the job done through a barrier of armor glass. But he’d evidently given it a go anyway, smashing what was left of the corpse against itself in a fruitless attempt to chew.

I backed out of the room slowly. Just in case.

My stomach rumbled loudly, reminding me of a sentiment I now unwilling shared with the infected. Save I was a much pickier eater, of course. No humans, no raw meat for me. I checked the other doors, finding more stockpiles of arms and armor- these were also locked behind security gates. Still no food. I continued on.

At the end of the hall opposite the cells was another hatch. I mentally prepared myself to open it. But there was nothing waiting for me on the other side save for an open area with three other entrances. Medical, because of course security would have their own doctors. Firing Range. And Front Offices.

The Firing Range might have more bullets for my pistol. The Front Offices might have snack machines but more likely not- there would be another cafeteria around the main elevator shaft. And probably another horde. I didn’t want to go there, but I’d have to find some way to progress.

Some way to deal with hordes, too, because the pods were supposed to be mostly on the habitat level, where I expected the most zombies to be.

So I went to the Medical section first. Get it out of the way, make sure there wasn’t anything nasty in there. I knew zombies weren’t going to be opening the hatches themselves, so I realize that this was not the best logic. More likely some part of me still wanted to get sample cases so I could continue my studies.

As I entered the hatch I was faced with another at the end of a short corridor. “Quarantine Protocol In Effect” was flashing in amber letters along the walls. A panel to my left was lit with “Begin Decontamination Procedure Y/N?” I chose yes, of course. Decontamination sounded pretty good to me.

The hatch shut itself behind me and a foggy mist flooded the room, followed by strong jets of soap. At least I assumed it was some sort of soap. The blood that had caked and dried on my suit was swiftly washed away.

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Of course security would have an easy way to get the blood off, I thought.

Then I felt bad about that. They were all dead by now as far as I knew. And they hadn’t died huddled in their safe offices protected by gun turrets and armor glass. That meant they’d died out there, doing their jobs. I was the one that hid. Not them.

The decontamination cycle took long minutes to complete, but by the time it was done I was sure there wasn’t a speck of dirt blood left anywhere in the room. It didn’t just gleam, it positively sparkled. Which reminded me that I needed a shower. The odor of sweat and fear permeated the inside of my suit. Though I’d largely become numb to it, I knew it was there. I left the decontamination chamber and was faced with something I had not expected. At all.

It wasn’t zombies.

The entire ward in front of me was piled with stacks of boxes, crates, and piles of stuff. I stood there stunned by it all for a moment. I recognized very little. There were stacks of storage panels still in their protective casing, unused. I saw an open crate of what I expect was contraband of some sort. Shiny jewelry, high end comm tech and video visors were jumbled together with what I assume was illegal drugs in little plastic bags, a vibroknife, and more. So much crap. It looked like a hoarder gone mad had been here.

On my right were finally a few things I recognized. Food! Nutrient paste dispensers, vacuum sealed dry meals, basic long-storage food stock like rice and beans. I needed that food. It took a moment more than I’d have liked to doff the emergency suit and tear into a meal bar.

I choked down the dry thing in seconds and grabbed a tube of nutrient paste to wash it down with. I’d lived on the same for a long time now but I needed more. Using nanites the way I did, they took their fuel from my own stores of energy.

In my lab I had a power field that I could tap to keep my nanites active while I was working without starving myself. The power field was not portable in the least, being that it was built into the structure of the room itself. Using my own colony like an electronic lockpick was just one of the things I could do with it. But everything had a cost. And some were greater than others.

Still hungry but no longer ravenous, I took my time chewing another meal bar as I explored the piles of random loot. That’s what this stuff was. Loot that some looter took while the station deconstructed around him. Or maybe it would be better to call him a scavenger.

None of this stuff was owned by anyone that could still speak up about the “theft.” The pistol I wore wasn’t something that was issued to me as a researcher- ballistic weaponry was not even remotely related to my field of study.

Speaking of weaponry, there were more of the bullet boxes in one of the open crates I saw. Empty ones, but there were heavy looking containers with the little yellow bullets in them. I pulled one out of the magazine I had and compared. Same size. It took me a few moments to figure out how to put the bullets into the bullet boxes.

Magazines, rather. That’s what they were called, I think. Printed on the side was “Magazine, 10.5mm SS”. The containers had printing that read the same. Apparently “SS” meant “Station Safe.” Maybe that was so the bullets didn’t punch through the bulkheads? It wouldn’t do to put holes in the sealed can that held your only air.

I loaded up the magazines I had and took two more. Now I had five magazines with ten bullets a piece in them. My shooting was still terrible, so I might need that many. There were loops on the belt that the magazines fit into, so I stored them away. The rest of the crates that I rifled through showed eclectic taste.

More valuables, some security armor that hadn’t done the first zombie I’d killed much good. Several technical type things that I didn’t recognize or see any use for, some entertainment cubes, and several boxes of candy. I was not interested in the candy. Or any of the rest of it, really. I did snag the vibroknife I’d seen, though. That could be useful.

The storage bins that actually held the specimen containers I’d sought were buried under piles of crates and boxes. I snagged a satchel that already held medical supplies and added the containers to it. That done, it was time to get my suit back on and keep looking for a way out.

The emergency suit stank. It stank a lot. There had been a time when bad smells didn’t bother me so much. I’d been spoiled by life on Walker, even including the last seven years. Earth probably had a whole world of bad smells waiting for me, too. Assuming I made it there alive. I would just have to get used to it.

The decontamination cycle did not trigger as I left, thankfully. I decided to skip the Firing Range, now that I had enough bullets. Or what I hoped was enough. I wouldn’t be facing down a horde with a pistol, that was for sure. I’d barely escaped with my life the three times I’d encountered the zombies so far. I entered the Front Offices with the pistol in my hand and ready.

Nothing jumped out at me, so I continued through. Interrogation rooms were to my left, with screens showing them all to be empty. To my right were yet more offices. Higher ranked ones this time. Lieutenants of this and that. Detectives and sergeants.

I wondered who the scavenger had been. A security officer, most likely. How had he survived? How long had he survived? Maybe he had been the smushed corpse in that first armory storage unit I’d found. How long ago had that been?

I wondered if he’d been hunting zombies all by himself. Maybe that’s why he had entered the armory, to get better weapons? Maybe he’d been after the combat suit- he’d be almost invincible in that. I wanted a combat suit. I bet the zombies couldn’t pinch your flesh with their teeth in one of those. My leg and my arm still hurt. There were purple bruises forming there, and my headache was still going strong. Armor sounded like a really good idea. I didn’t go back for the security armor though.

The front desk area was open to the cafeteria in front of the elevators. There was no horde there- but there were zombies. At least one of them was awake. It saw me and it howled.

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