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The ride to the outskirts of the slums, apart from a few stray zombies who found their way under the treads of the tank, was uneventful, despite it being a 10 mile trip. We kept a good clip for the distance, arriving at an outer tunnel that lead into the city about 10 minutes after we left the hotel parking lot. The entrance to the tunnel had been locked down by automated mini gun turrets and a few guys with M249 SAW's. They had a tank as well, but the right tread was busted, rendering it immobile. When we pulled up to the barricade in front of the tunnel a man with an AR-15 and light equipment came up to us.

"You Captain Walker?", he asked.

"Yes', the tank commander said, "did Ryu radio ahead?"

"Yes sir", the man said, "your all set to go through, but I need to ask you to relay a request for a part we need to Ryu, our tank's right tread is busted, we had a link bolt fail. I would have done it myself, but our generator shut off on us and thus, our CB died."

"A link bolt shouldn't be hard to get a hold of", the tank commander said, "when was your last supply drop?"

"About a week ago", the other guy said, "we should be receiving a new one in a couple of hours."

"I'll radio Ryu", the tank commander said, "now drop the barricade and let us through."

The man nodded, "positions, the gate's opening."

The other men turned their attention from us to a large metal gate that began to split down the middle as the other tank started and turned it's turret to the direction of the gate. I held my weapon at the ready as well and so did Sarah, even though she seemed scared shitless about actually having to pull the trigger. The gate shrugged and opened with the sounds of grinding gears, revealing a lit tunnel that seemed to be several miles long as I could just barely see the end. Our armor idled up to the entrance of the tunnel and then stopped as another man walked up to us.

"Be careful", he said, "the tunnel should be secured, but the last batch of our guys to go through reported some fast motherfuckers that could go toe to toe with Exo wearers. Your on a Main Battle tank so you should be okay, but just a heads up."

"Thanks for the heads up", I said as the tank lurched and started forward, rowing to what felt like 45 MPH before it jolted into second gear.

"Fast zombies now", Sarah sighed, "free bonus with the Giant Spider DLC for agent 41."

"Yeah", I answered, "didn't take long for Chemical 240 and Number 12 to start fucking things up again. By the way, aren't zombies supposed to be slow and fragile? How the hell can something that's rotting take on a man in an Exo?"

"I would have to guess that either 240 or 12 applied some sort of effect that delayed or out right prevented rigor mortis", Sarah said, "if that's the case, then the subject would almost certainly have to be still alive, thus curable. Ryu has a pretty impressive lab, so if I can get his immune people to cooperate with me, I know for a fact I can at least develop a suppressant, maybe even a treatment, a cure however....well that remains to be seen."

"What the hell makes you think they'll still alive?", I asked.

"Well", Sarah began, "After death, respiration in organisms ceases, depleting the corpse of oxygen used in the making of adenosine triphosphate or ATP. When oxygen is no longer present, the body may continue to produce ATP via anaerobic glycolysis. And when the body's glycogen is depleted, the ATP concentration diminishes and the body enters rigor mortis. So for a zombie to fast, or even move normally, it would have to have at least a somewhat functional respiratory and circulatory system, or at the very least, which would be maintaining normal movement, it would have to be getting a lot of extra glycogen from somewhere."

"Where would you find that?", I asked.

Sarah looked at me, "ever wonder why zombies eat people?"

"Occasionally", I said, "never put any serious thought into it."

"Well now you know", Sarah said, "Glycogen. It's found in small amounts in the human body, which is why a corpse that has been dead longer than 12 hours will be rejected as food, it doesn't have the one thing a zombie needs to keep going, and it's also why they don't eat each other."

"I'm no biologist", I said, "but wouldn't extracting something from food require a working digestive tract? Everything I've read about zombies say all their organs but the brain shut down."

'That's not entirely true", Sarah said, "many of the organs in a zombie operate in a specialized capacity, the lungs operate in that they continue to draw air in and push air out, which is why they can growl, but since the brain has no need for oxygen, that's about all the lungs are good for. The Circulatory system shuts down completely, which is why you can hit them with slashes that would be lethal to humans, and the digestive tract is almost completely useless, working to only extract the Glycogen, but not much else. If you were to cut a zombie's stomach open, or carve it out, it would probably be rendered immobile in a couple of days."

"So that's why they eat everything with a pulse", I said, "because they have to."

"Don't ever say zombies have no scientific backing", Sarah said, "talk to any biologist and they will tell you just how possible they are."

"Tell me this then", I asked, "how did Martin manage to integrate telekinetic control over his victims and trigger a mutation when he lost it?"

"I'm not sure", Sarah said, "Martin was decades ahead of everyone else in the Biology field at Biosphere, he was cracking codes people had given up on years ago."

I sighed, "so...where does that leave us?"

"I wish I could say for certain", Sarah said, "my priorities right now are getting the samples of the immune blood and then seeing about tracking down two of these new infected."

"Easier said than done", I sighed.

Sarah and I didn't speak after that. It was an uneventful roll to the end of the tunnel, where another barricade, tank and turret base were set up. There were seven guys armed with SAW's and AR-15s, what seemed to be the weapons of choice for field work. They were also dressed in heavy suits and I could see they were carrying an asinine amount of ammunition. The tank pulled to a stop and killed it's engine as Sarah and I jumped off.

"You must be Skyline?", one of them asked shouldering his SAW and offering me his hand.

"Ryu radio ahead?", I asked shaking it.

"He did", the man said, "something about blood samples."

"That would be my area", Sarah said, "Ryu thinks you may be immune, so to the end of researching a potential cure, I need about two vials from each of you."

"Okay", the man said, "we can do that, we'll go two at a time."

Sarah took him and another guy back behind the medical truck while I looked out over the bridge that the guard post was built on. It was only about 1,000 feet long, but it was littered with burnt and stuck cars as well as the bodies of many, many infected, most of which were starting to rot and the stench was just awful.

"God that fucking stinks", I sighed, wishing that I'd brought my gas mask with me, but I'd left my ruck back at the base because I didn't see any use in lugging it around with me, "wish I'd brought my mask."

"Hey at least be thankful you don't have to smell it for seven hours a day", the kid beside me said, he looked like he was wearing the same model of Exo as Alcatraz and was armed with only an M16.

"My friend wears that same model", I said.

"It helps me with my job and keeps me from falling apart", the kid said, "so that's good. And now since the apocalypse and all I don't have to make any more payments, which is also good because they were braking my ass every month."

'What do you mean it keeps you from falling apart?", I asked.

The kid seemed to shift in his boots, "I have a really bad degenerative disease, attacks the bonds that hold my body together, or something like that, it runs in my family thanks to years of chemical exposure on my Dad's side of the family. The Exo came with a Nanobot treatment module that combats the symptoms, repairing the damage about as fast as it occurs, creating a zero sum as long as I'm wearing it, if I took off, I'd eventually rot away like a zombie."

"My buddy Alcatraz has a similar problem", I said, "but with him, his systems have gotten so used to the Exo, that the Computer in his head can't function correctly without it, so when he takes it off unless he does a "Safely Remove" sort of thing, it fucks him all up."

"Alcatraz?", the kid asked, "what the hell kind of name is that?"

"Well it has a bit of a backstory", I said, "but he had a really bad accident and had to get a lot of his body rebuilt. During one test, he called the synthetic parts he has a prison and a friend of his called him Alcatraz, the name apparently stuck."

"What happened?", the kid asked.

"Well that's between us", I said, "I don't see the need to delve too much into his past, as it's something he'd really rather no one know about."

"Fair enough", the kid said, "so tell me, how'd you end up in this mess?"

"Shit", I laughed, "that's a long ass story. It started with a bounty job. Show up, kill a creature and get the biggest check of my life. But not so. I ended up locked in a game of cat and mouse with the craziest man I'd ever seen, and I've seen some unhinged lunatics in my time, but this guy? He'd just as soon dissect you just to see what was going on inside as look at you. For Science! He's the reason this whole shit storm started in the first place."

The kid whistled, "holy shit."

"At least he's dead", I said, "no one could survive what I dished out and even if he did the destruction of the lab would have vaporized him."

'What you do?", he asked.

"Used a suit of X5 Powered Assault Armor to rip him in half", I said.

"Metal", The kid said, "which I had some X5, the closest I've come to power armor was an old frame with some rusted pieces of F105."

"F-105 is great armor", I said.

"Yeah when it's not rusted into nothing", the kid said, "I could put my thumb through it with no difficulty, and that was before I bought the Exo."

"Then I take it back", I said, "what you had was scrap metal."

"No shit", the kid said. He sighed, "I was supposed to fly out of here the day after this shit storm went down."

"Where were you headed?", I asked.

"Earth", the kid said, "they do huge burnouts down there, I was planing on entering my old Camaro."

"Closest I've ever come to owning a sports car was my old Chevy Avalanche with a paddleshift transmission", I said, "the only one I've ever driven was a bitchin' Honda Accord modified for off road that could haul ass even in 200 degree heat with melting tires."

"Come again?", the kid asked, "an engine swapped accord? That's a thing?"

"On Ios it is", I said, "my buddy James ran a lab there that was hard to reach, so he gave the bottom floor to a company called Diesel Tech, they were developing all kinds of cool shit for getting round off road."

"How much power was it making?", the kid asked.

"Upper 700's", I said, "turbocharged V8 engine. My older brother would know, all I've ever done is work on my truck just to keep it going."

"What model year?", the kid asked.

"2095", I said.

"Then you know you were packing a 650 horse V8 and all wheel drive right?", the kid asked.

"V8?", I asked, "yeah, nah, it was a pathetically under powered four banger that drives the rear."

The kid shook his head. "The 2095 and past models of avalanche are strictly All Wheel Drive."

"Not mine", I said, "first owner yanked the V8 and the front wheel drive kit out long before I got it. By the way my name's Skyline."

"Trevor", the kid said, "I like M4's and M14's."

"Man FAL"s are where it's at, best of both worlds", I said, "and while I'm here, what can you tell me about this new, fast zombie?"

"Not a whole lot", the kid said, "only ever seen one, it wasn't moving "fast" a brisk, coordinated walk maybe, but it wasn't running. It had just enough voice left to convince us that it was survivor and used it to get close before turning on us. Didn't get far before I put my fist through it's skull, but it still managed to bite two guys. They almost committed suicide before we realized they weren't showing any symptoms, when other people had already started to lose motor skills, a few weeks went by and the worst they had a fever, the bites healed up and nothing happened."

"Damn", I said, "I guess that law's true."

'What law?", Trevor asked.

"There was a rumor going around the place where I work", I said, "no matter what super bug you have, there will be people who are immune to it, period."

Trevor opened his mouth to reply as someone tapped me on the shoulder, I turned around to see Sarah standing there.

"Sorry to cut your conversation off", She said, "but I need him."

"I don't know if I'm immune", Trevor said, "you'd be wasting your time mam."

"In that case", Sarah said, "I have what I need. Let's get back to the tower, Ryu just radioed me and said that he had a job for you."

I sighed, "I do so love my line of work."