Mutagen

Day 3 – 7:43 AM – Bacoor City Hall 4th Floor, Molino Boulevard, Bayanan, Bacoor City, Cavite

Charmaine looked at the radio in her hand, shocked.

'He came to pick me up? Why? How did he find me?'

Those questions echoed in her mind but she did not have much thought to voice it. She also wanted to get out of this hellhole.

But then she remembered why they were trapped in here in the first place.

"Big Brother! Don't come here, it's dangerous!"

She shouted her concern. What a good girl. She already felt weak and did not have the ability to escape this place without the help of others but she still did not want to implicate anyone. Especially since this Big Brother of hers who did not have contact with them in the past years actually came to look for her.

There was a lot of infected outside the building and around the compound. There were also those tree people and the larger tree person roaming the street.

Charmaine then heard his reply.

"I already saw the situation and I already thought of a plan to pick you up. I'll be there in several minutes. Keep the radio with you alright?"

The drone that landed in front of her then started to fly up with buzzing sounds coming from its four propellers.

***

Mark controlled the drone to fly while he saw Charmaine watching the drone as it took off. However, the drone just managed to take flight to a certain height when someone snatched the radio out of Charmaine's hand and even pushed her away.

Mark frowned. He was furious.

The person that snatched the radio was a man. The man stared at the camera on the drone and spoke at the radio.

***

"Hey! What about us! You have to help us!"

What a thick face. After what the man did to Charmaine, he was actually looking hopefully at the camera. Unfortunately, the reply he received was enough to give him chills in his spine.

"When I arrive there, the first thing I will do is kill you."

The voice was calm and detached but that just added to the threat factor of the reply.

The man stepped back in fear but he soon regained his composure. He actually got scared of a threat? He felt shame and then the shame turned to anger. He smashed the radio to the floor in front of the camera and ran off.

Charmaine, teary eyed, crawled towards the broken radio. The tried to put the radio piece by piece but of course, it could not be fixed just like that.

***

From the scene in the monitor, everyone in the vehicle looked furious. Even the always silent Abbbygale looked at Mark and ask.

"Are we going to kill that bad man Papa?"

Her Papa did not answer but the furious look on his face surely judged the fate of that man later.

Looking at the pitiful appearance of Charmaine in the monitor, Mark could not hold back anymore and wanted to charge to that place as soon as possible.

It was then that a woman approached Charmaine in panic and pulled her back to spot where she was resting before. The woman looked like she was in her late twenty's and was wearing a nurse uniform. Mark did not saw this woman from the window earlier.

Looking at her panic at Charmaine's pitiful appearance as she tried to fix the radio while glancing at the Drone warily, it looked like she did not know what happened just now.

***

Under Charmaine's stare and the nurse's wary glances, the drone turned around while remaining in place. It looked like whoever was controlling the drone was checking the place. It then stopped while looking at the man who stood behind the congresswoman's group.

The congresswoman had a complicated look on her face. She also had the notion to ask for help from the person who was controlling the drone. She was waiting for the right timing and to politely ask the man on the radio for help. Since the weakened woman on the floor was still talking to the radio, the congresswoman patiently waited.

However, before she could make a move, the man just now turned the situation awry. Still, she could not do anything to the man.

That man was the owner of a known private-owned enterprise here in Bacoor and had large dealings with the local government. Furthermore, the man had relatives within the government and their position was higher than what she had as a congresswoman.

The congresswoman sighed. She knew that the chances of getting help now were very slim. Even the people around them had complicated faces as they looked at the man. If he wanted to dig a grave for himself, why also drag them into it?

The policemen and the bodyguards of the congresswoman were also boiling inside as they glanced at the man by the side of their eyes. If the congresswoman were to order it, they would not hesitate to shoot this aggravating person.

The drone then flew away back to where it came from under everyone's gazes. They all knew that the person behind that drone would come here sooner or later.

The man who smashed the radio had a different opinion though. With the number of infected inside, the person behind that drone would surely die before he could even enter the building. He was hoping that it would happen. He did not want to admit or show it in his face but there was something that gave him fear when he heard the voice from that radio making him disoriented and act without thinking.

***

Back inside the vehicle, Mark was getting ready. The others were also helping Abbygale ready herself.

For this operation, Mark was going with Abbygale. For sure, he needed to carry Charmaine and his fighting capability would be hindered severely. In that case, he needed to bring someone and the only possible person to bring was Abbygale. Still, she might just be a little girl but her physical fighting prowess might even be higher than her Papa.

Odelina was in charge of driving the vehicle of course and Mei was in charge of luring the infected away from the extraction point. How? She will be using the drone.

Right now, Mei was the one controlling the drone back to the car. It was a form of practice for her as they needed someone to take on the role. Mei was also eager to do it as she wanted to help even just with a little thing. She did not want to be just a baggage for the group.

Mark wore a black jacket as always but the one he was wearing right now had several pockets on the chest, abdomen and the sides. He was still wearing the security belt and he put several things on the open pockets of the belt. On his arm, Mark wore a metal forearm guards locked with a buckle. These armguards was something he made using the same materials they used in refitting the vehicle.

On his head, he wore a skate helmet and a pair of clear goggles for his eyes. He also had his mouth covered with a motorcycle face mask.

Abbygale on the other hand was wearing a frilled dress. Even back in the mall, this girl did not really want to wear anything else other than this style of clothes. She said that her mommy always bought her clothes like this before. As the little girl would not relent about it, her Papa just decided to make her several kinds of equipment suitable for her.

As Mark observed about Abbygale, she did not really use her arms when fighting. What she mainly used was her legs. He also saw that even if her physical strength was high, it was not her forte but her speed. With these traits, Mark modified a pair of shoes for her and added metal fittings around the sole with a rubber inner side lessen the force of impact received by her feet. He also made sure that she the fittings were sturdy but would not hinder the little girl's movements. He also made a pair of metal fitted gloves and a pair of smaller metal armguards for the little girl.

For her head, she wore a skate helmet designed for children. She did not want to wear anything on her face for some reason so Mark did not force her to do so.

For the weapons, Mark was bringing his machete, a silenced assault rifle and a silenced pistol while Mark made Abbygale bring a pistol just in case. Even if the little girl was not trained for it, it would sure come in handy.

Mark also brought a backpack with ready to eat high calorie but low sugar food and drinks. He could at least feed Charmaine before bringing her out.

He wanted to prepare some molotovs but he had no gasoline to use to fill the bottles. Diesel could not be used as it was combustible rather than flammable. He could only bring two spray canisters of butane he brought that was supposed to be used to refill lighters.

About the fruit that Odelina and Abbygale wanted, he decided to bring it up for later. Right now, getting Charmaine out of there was the priority.

It was now time to move out.

***

Around the compound, a quadcopter drone was flying low, about 8 feet from the ground, while slowly moving around the street. It started to gather the attention of the infected. Those who were attracted to the drone were mostly Biters while the slower Eaters did not seem to care. It was just like how Mark observed these infected. The Biters were sensitive to any kind of sound but the Eaters would only have reaction towards human voices. That was why…

A radio was attached under the drone and was turned into full volume. Voices of two children were heard from the radio attracting the Eaters around the drone. The two voices came from Odelina's children. They were in charge of making more noise around the drone.

The pace of the drone was slow but it was effective to some extent as the Eaters were slow moving in the first place.

***

Inside the City Hall, the one of the survivors noticed the commotion outside and called the attention of the other survivors. When the others looked at the road in front of the City Hall, they saw a large procession. No, it was not a procession but actually dozens of infected being led by a very familiar drone.

They all watched as the drone led the dozens of infected away. As the crowd grew larger and larger, there would be stragglers. It was also obvious that some of the infected noticed that the drone was something that they could not bite and left the crowd.

Still, most of the infected followed the drone and most of them were the fast running infected. They all watched the drone led the infected away until they could not see the drone anymore after it went behind the building through the northern side.

Then, they saw a vehicle coming from the direction of the boulevard. It was a large black van with metal fittings around it. The solar panels on the roof of the vehicle and the wide V-shaped ram in front of it could also be seen. They could not see the inside of the vehicle though. It was not because they were high up but because the windows of the vehicle were heavily tinted.

The remaining infected on the way rushed towards the vehicle but they were decimated as the vehicle mercilessly crashed on their frail bodies. The V-shaped ram pushed the zombies to the side with great force leaving their bodies with injuries worse than before.

Under the gazes of the people watching by the windows, the vehicle followed the same route the drone took but stopped in front of the gymnasium.

When it stopped, two people came out of the vehicle, a man and a small girl. The man was armed with an assault rifle and was accurately shooting the infected rushing towards them.

The two ran towards the office building attached to the gymnasium and entered it. When the two entered, the vehicle made a U-turn and went back the way it came from.