Chapter Fifty-Three – Z-Word

Chapter Fifty-Three – Z-Word

“The survivors of the first mass Incursion, most of them Americans living in Ohio, were lauded as heroes. Their accounts were big news, their stories shared by millions.

Things haven’t gotten better.”

–Excerpt from John Delancy’s “Three Times Unto the Breach.” A Noted survivor of three of the earliest incursions. 2026

***

I’d never been keen on horror games.

Oh, sure, I’d tried a few. The orphanage had a VR room for a few weeks at one point until someone broke in and stole the gear we’d been donated. It was old even when we got it, but it worked. Some of the more tech-savvy kids had pirated all sorts of shitty little games. They also got into a heap of shit for breaking DRMs, but that was besides the point.

Point was, I’d played a few games, usually with Lucy nearby and clinging onto me whenever something popped out from around a corner screaming like a banshee.

We’d even tried some full-dive stuff at our school, but the machine to connect to MeshSpace was an old decrepit thing, and the few horror movies we’d watched all felt terribly gimmicky when seen in glorious 30 frames per second.

Crawling through a rat’s nest of maintenance corridors, following a set of red lights that were guiding us deeper and deeper in towards a shelter that we couldn’t see was way higher on the creepy scale.

Monroe and his boys turned this way and that, lighting up sections of the corrior in flashes that passed as soon as they turned. “You guys seem nervous,” I said.

“I think, ma’am, that it’s because we are,” Monroe returned with a whisper.

I swung my crossbow around towards some movement, only to realize it was a moth being stupid next to one of the lights. “I think I’m going to file a complaint to whomever took out half the damned lights,” I said.

“I’ll help you with that,” Monroe agreed.

My drone skittered ahead to the edge of the next corridor, then tipped forwards just enough to see around the corner. A moment later a tiny box in the corner of my vision showed me yet another drab grey corridor. Only this one, at last, had a door.

“Shelter’s ahead,” I murmured.

“Got it,” Monroe said. “We’ll fan out by the entrance. Can you negotiate?”

“I might not have to,” I said as I frowned. The vault door was open.

It was one of those real vaults, with a door that was a foot thick chunk of steel with enough hydraulic doodads to let it move in and out of its place. Probably not enough to stop one of the bigger xenos, but more than enough for any of those I’d encountered so far.

It wouldn’t stop anything if left open though.

Light was pouring out of the shelter and onto the pipe-covered wall opposite. I paused by the corner and listened as hard as I could. No voices, but the swishing of clothes rubbing together and the occasional cough and mutter.

Were they just being quiet? Maybe the door failed? But if that was the case, why leave the lights on?

“Dumbass,” I muttered. “Go check.”

The drone bobbed up and down in what I assumed was a ‘yes ma’am’ before darting ahead. Halfway to the door the drone went invisible.

Worth every point, that one.

With a twitch of my eye the drone’s vision grew larger across one of my eyes and I took in a perfect, ground-level view of the approaching shelter. It reached the door and skittered to the front of it, its little body turning to face the entrance.

I swallowed.

The people we were there to save were all present. Sixty or so bodies, all sitting on the ground, or laying down and sometimes swaying. They were clumped together as one big group, their eyes staring vacantly, some with drool leaking out of their mouths.

There was blood across the ground, and the crushed bodies of some smaller aliens that I didn’t recognize right away. They were smaller than the Model Ones, more worms with little legs than anything I could match to a normal animal.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

The drone panned to the side, revealing a trio of security guards who were still armed. All three had their heads blown off, and judging by the way they were positioned, they’d done the deed themselves.