Ghost opens the doors as quietly as possible and, with two shots from the sniper rifle—having switched weapons—efficiently and without fuss takes out both special forces soldiers from behind. Beltway, following close after him, quite literally blows away the zombies left over from the fight with the special forces with his ram shots. His partner, meanwhile, secures his weapon behind his back again and switches to a faster-firing rifle.
The rest follow the pair, myself included, crawling along; fortunately, the height of the ceilings allows me not only to move freely but to do so unnoticed. And considering that I am now positioned directly above my victim, the poor owner of the beautiful jacket has already been covered by the barrels of both Ghost's and Foue Eyes's weapons more than once. Heh. I'm rattling their nerves and teaching them that their squad mate radiates the wrong kind of light. I have a couple of thoughts on this. First and foremost, of course, once he is separated from the squad, it will be possible to deal with him without fear of reinforcements arriving due to the radar signal. After all, he is already lit up.
And with my thought about the street, I almost guessed right. We exited the building and ran, roughly speaking, along a balcony that had been converted into a corridor. So technically, I could have escaped—but since everything was going so well, why leave my prey to someone else?
After running along the balcony and briefly conferring in front of two doors, the mercenary squad proceeded as follows. Three charges, apparently designed for indoor use, were thrown into the side door, which Beltway had previously kicked open with his foot (his army-style steel prosthesis is no joke). There was a short roar, and then everything fell silent.
"Clear. Dead end," reported the hooded man, peering inside. Apparently, it was just a staff room or something similar. Though I may be mistaken, since I can't see it from where I am—and there's no point in going in if it really is a dead end.
While I was thinking this over, the two silent ones—as I'd nicknamed my victim and Ghost, because the others talk when they talk, but these two, even when engaging in dialogue, get by with just a couple of phrases—took positions on either side of the large wooden doors. They opened them sharply and entered the room with weapons raised. Lupo stood between them.
Beyond the doors, something resembling a fork in the road awaited them: two rather small doors on either side, which, according to Ghost—who was checking the scanner—were clear. Straight ahead lay a passage with no visible door, just an open doorway. Beyond it stretched an oval corridor filled with special forces, though the Umbrellas who hadn't advanced further didn't know that yet. Surprise, guys!
And then a competent passage on both sides of the corridor from the mercenaries—and the final pair of special forces, almost right in front of the Umbrellas' noses, hide in the doors opposite the ones we'd entered. And apparently, that was exactly where the squad needed to go.
"Beltway," Lupo said, and the entire squad immediately took up their positions. The two silent ones covered the door again, just like last time. The rest of the squad spread out slightly, while the big guy covered the doorway in the right places (where else? I may not be a demolition expert, but he's clearly not carrying explosives around for no reason), set the charge, and blew the door.
In the hallway beyond, two special forces soldiers were already being devoured by a couple of the same kind of nimble zombies, with their strikingly red skin. Crimson Heads.
This next stage in the evolution of simple zombies was eliminated almost immediately. As I understood it, they'd attacked the special forces from behind while the latter were waiting for us to appear—but the Umbrella squad quite literally riddled their opponents with lead. The last one, shot in the leg and thus robbed of much of his mobility, was finished off with a precise lateral strike from the hooded figure, who plunged his knife straight into the zombie's head. A quick sprint down the corridor, a sweep of the side rooms—and the squad was already at the next door.
Another run—this time, apparently for variety—down an empty corridor, though splattered with blood, and we entered (or rather, some of us crawled into) a room filled with processors or something similar, stacked neatly on shelves. A server room? Apparently so. And that's it? What about the Lickers? Where's my chance for treats, knowledge, and all that?
Although the smell of Lickers was present here—and strong. Even so, despite the very bright lighting, the mercenaries didn't notice anyone, and I, peering into the room, didn't see anyone either. Why didn't I crawl in after them? With lighting like this, they'd spot me immediately. But no—there's something interesting here, besides the servers and their data.
"It must be… Nikolai's squad," Ghost said in two short breaths.
"Who knows how many people he fed to the infected. His mind is clouded," Lupo replied with a grimace.
"Fun, of course, but we have work to do. Remember?" the blonde snorted, a strange intonation in her voice. A sadist? I'm starting to think so.
"Stop dawdling. Everyone, focus your fire on the servers," came through Lupo's comms from command. To be honest, I didn't even notice when she activated the channel—or whether she managed to say anything herself.
The sound of short bursts, quiet mutters of "Barbarians!" from the clearly dissatisfied Foue Eyes—apparently, someone wanted to take some of the information for themselves—and then a concise "Done" from Lupo. Most likely, she reactivated the comm again.
"Okay. Now get into the archive and finish the job." The same voice, accompanied by a faint squeak of something on the soldiers' helmets. Updating coordinates, I suppose? Aren't they afraid of wearing all these gadgets? One short circuit, and it won't be pleasant at all.
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