The Predators were clearly using the Claw mutants for training or entertainment.
That gave Jonathan and Merle a glimmer of hope.
Perhaps the Predators were so focused on their prey that they would not notice the two men hiding in the gap.
Daryl must have seen the situation from above as well.
Without exchanging a word, all three remained perfectly still.
The hunt inside the workshop was nearing its end.
The second Claw mutant lay twitching on the floor. The first was still struggling, but its movements had slowed considerably.
The two Predators were in no hurry to finish them off.
It was all rotting flesh. To them, it tasted the same whether their prey was alive or dead.
Five minutes later, one Claw mutant stopped moving altogether.
The other tried to escape, stumbling toward the gap where Jonathan and Merle were hiding.
Damn it, Merle cursed inwardly.
The Claw mutant slammed into a reactor vessel with a loud thud.
Both Predators turned at once, the grooves on their brain growths snapping open.
They had noticed the sound.
But it did not end there.
In its final moments, the dying Claw mutant sensed the human figures inside the gap.
Claw mutants had no intelligence, and even being on the verge of death could not suppress their primal hunger for the living.
Using the last of its strength, it snarled at Jonathan and Merle while clawing frantically at the metal wall.
They were done for.
Merle covered his eyes. Just die already. Don't drag us down with you!
The Predators' posture changed instantly. They raised their brain growths and slowly turned toward the gap between the reactor vessels.
Jonathan knew they could no longer remain hidden.
"Daryl, take the one on the right. Aim for the eye," he whispered into his headset while raising his shotgun. "Merle, take the left!"
Before he had even finished speaking, Jonathan pulled the trigger.
"BOOM!"
A storm of steel pellets tore into the dying Claw mutant, blasting its brain growth apart with a single shot.
The Predator on the left reacted with astonishing speed and twisted aside. The distance was too short, however, and Merle still struck one of the grooves in its brain growth, spraying dark fluid into the air.
Almost simultaneously, a crossbow bolt streaked down from above and buried itself precisely in the right Predator's mouth.
The creature released a piercing shriek and thrashed its head violently. The bolt flew free, taking a chunk of flesh with it.
Jonathan pumped another round into the chamber.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
He fired three times in rapid succession, striking the left Predator squarely in the chest. The pellets did not appear to penetrate its abnormally tough crystalline exoskeleton.
"Fall back!" Jonathan shouted as he reloaded.
The three men sprinted toward the northeastern corner of the workshop.
The wounded Predators raced after them. Their injuries had slowed them down, but they were still terrifyingly fast.
Daryl ran along the elevated walkway while quickly reloading his crossbow.
When one of the Predators nearly caught up, he gritted his teeth and took the risk. He stopped, turned, and aimed. His second bolt struck the joint connecting the left Predator's limbs, making it stumble and finally slowing it for a moment.
Merle and Jonathan reached the chemical injection point in the reactor workshop.
It was a waist-high metal cabinet equipped with manual valves and a chemical injection port.
"Set up the neutralizer! I'll hold them off!"
Merle braced himself against the cabinet and opened fire again.
A stream of bullets briefly halted the two Predators' advance.
Jonathan worked frantically.
He pulled the hose from the neutralizer tank, connected it to the injection port, opened the valve, and set the activation delay to three minutes, the shortest safe interval.
"It's set! Move!"
But the Predator that had been shot in the mouth had already circled around to their flank.
It seemed to have locked onto them through the grooves in its brain growth. Its foreclaw swept toward Jonathan, and he barely managed to raise his shotgun across his chest to block it.
The blow struck the metal barrel. The tremendous force split the skin between his thumb and index finger and knocked the weapon from his hands.
Its other claw drove toward his chest.
"Thump!"
At the critical moment, Daryl's third bolt arrived and pierced the base of the Predator's forelimb.
Jonathan seized the opportunity to roll out of the way.
"That way!" Merle pointed toward a narrow pipe maintenance passage.
The three squeezed inside.
The passage was too narrow for the Predators to enter, but the creatures clawed furiously at the opening and released piercing shrieks.
"Keep moving! The three-minute countdown has started!"
The three men crawled desperately through the pipe, with the Predators' furious screeches and impacts echoing behind them.
After roughly twenty meters, they finally reached the exit.
They had barely crawled out when a muffled release of gas sounded behind them.
Whoomph!
A cloud of pale yellow mist poured from the pipe opening and rapidly spread through the area.
The neutralizer at Node Four had activated.
...
In the monitoring room, Bossie nearly jumped out of his chair.
"Node Four has activated! But Jonathan's team is moving. They're running, and something is chasing them!"
On the screen, Jonathan's team was rapidly heading back toward them.
Two Predators remained near the pipe entrance behind them. They seemed wary of the spreading neutralizer mist and did not immediately follow.
Leah checked the other surveillance feeds.
The other teams had also completed their assignments and were returning one after another.
Bossie released a long breath, only to tense again immediately.
"Wait. The pheromone readings..."
The numbers on the detector hanging from his waist began to plummet.
The pheromone concentration fell like a rapidly receding tide, its graph dropping almost vertically.
The red sections marking areas of high concentration faded and shrank one after another. They turned yellow, then finally stabilized at pale green, right at the edge of the safe threshold.
"My God..." Honeywell murmured. "The effect is incredible..."
Had they released the neutralizers in time back then, perhaps those people and walkers would never have mutated.
Reports from the teams began coming through the communicators.
"Team One has returned to the safe zone. No enemy contact."
"Team Two is returning. We encountered a disoriented Claw mutant and eliminated it."
"Team Three..."
"We're running for our lives, but the neutralizer is working. The things chasing us seem to have stopped."
The changes on the surveillance feeds were clearly visible.
The Predators began behaving abnormally.
Some circled in place, while others shrieked at empty air. Two even briefly confronted each other, seemingly unable to distinguish friend from foe without the pheromone signals.
The Claw mutants were in even worse condition.
They had completely lost all coordination and wandered aimlessly. One even stumbled straight into a Predator's territory, unwittingly delivering itself as a meal.
The plan had worked.
Calista's group was the last to return to the monitoring room.
On the way back, they witnessed the entire neutralizer activation process.
Nodes One and Two released their neutralizers almost simultaneously. Pale yellow mist surged through the ventilation system and was quickly carried into every corner by the airflow. Nodes Three, Four, and Five activated soon afterward.
Within half an hour, the entire purification net was fully established.
The air inside the chemical plant remained murky, but the invisible bond holding the mutant groups together had been severed.
After the team rested and regrouped, Calista and Leah decided to press their advantage.
While the mutants were still disoriented, they would complete the final step.
The purge.