The End Of Life

The doorbell rang and as the door opened Steve walked in with his lieutenant Sophia. He looked around the living room and noticed they were ready to go. Nodding towards Mark he said, "Alright come, let's go now. The General is waiting to introduce you guys to the people who you will fight with today."

Mark and the other stood up. David and Suzie gave a hug to Daisy and Ray. Ray just gave a nod to Kevin and Mark. As they exited the house and walked down the hallway, Steve looked at Mark and asked, "Oh yeah. Two teenagers came early in the morning waiting for you guys. When we asked what was going on, they said you guys asked them to be there. Care to explain."

Mark didn't respond but instead looked over his shoulder at David. David immediately responded, "Ah yes, those both are under my care for today's mission. I hope you guys don't mind the trouble." He didn't use Mark's name and just said he was looking after them. 

"Both of them are teenagers. They might be a problem in the mission. You do know how important this mission is right now, right?" Steve frowned a bit and asked David. 

"You don't need to worry too much. I will see to it that both those teenagers stay out of trouble during the mission." 

"I hope I can count on your word." and finally reached the entrance of the apartment. Steve along with Sophie got into their military vehicle while the rest into theirs. 

Reaching the camp main site, they parked the vehicles and got down. As they walked towards the building, David finally noticed the two teenagers in the distance looking at him. He paused and said, "One second. I'll bring both of them with me." Pointing at the kids and ran towards them. 

As he reached closer, he looked at Gwen and nodded before peeking at Dereck. Dereck was silent, looking at him with obvious anger in his eyes. But David didn't know how to appease the broken man, so he turned around and led them to the group. 

Reaching the group, Gwen looked up at Mark and said in a flat tone, "Thank you for accepting our request." 

Mark looked over his shoulder towards her and said, "I did nothing, it was him who asked. Let me just remind both of you. I don't care what you are going to do, but if you get in the way and are the reason to mess things up. I will personally send you both to your loved ones. Just remember that." Giving a harsh warning and threat. 

Facing his warning, Dereck flinched a little, but Gwen had the same look on her face as she nodded. Mark turned towards Steve. Steve nodded before they continued inside the building and climbed the stairs. 

They finally reached the floor and stopped in front of Donald's office. Steve knocked and went in before coming out again shortly and asking Mark to enter. Mark looked at the rest and asked them to wait before entering in. Donald sat behind the same old table with many papers spread across the area. Mark also noticed there weren't anymore maps out for display like the last time. 

'Seems like the old man learned from the last time, he hid all the maps so I won't get any more information.' He clicked his tongue thinking about it. Without waiting for permission, he simply sat in front of the old man. 

Donald looked up after a few more minutes and saw Mark already seated. He didn't say anything about it as he already somewhat expected it. 

"How was your rest? I hope you had plenty of that in the past two days." Donald initiated the conversation, breaking the silence. 

Mark nodded and said, "It was fine. Now let's get to the point, old man. Show me your team." 

Donald chuckled, hearing Mark's straightforward way of talking. He leaned back in his seat and said, "Don't worry. They are already assembled and are now waiting. But before you could meet them, I want to talk to you about something." 

Mark remained silent, wondering what the old man had to say. 

"Do you know that not only the zombies outside on the road but even humans are also evolving?" Donald spoke clearly into the silent room. It was only Steve, Mark and Donald in the room. 

Mark raised an eyebrow hearing this. Of Course, he knew that humans were adapting and evolving with the zombies around them after all he and Suzie also adapted and evolved. But hearing this from the old man only meant one thing. 

'The old man has someone in his cadre who adapted and evolved, gaining some power-ups like Suzie and me. But why is he revealing stuff like this, which is generally kept top-level secret to me? What does he want?' 

"Yes, you heard me right. People are also evolving. After getting our communication system ready and running after the day you gave us, we immediately contacted the central base in the capital. We shared some critical information between our two bases and we got to know quite a few stuff." 

"Like these evolving humans. I don't know if it is god's blessing, but we already knew this. Why? Because we had one of our own. We got to know about the changes happening to a few of the people in this camp over the last week. It amazes me to see humans getting a change in their bodies." 

"Now why am I sharing all this with you? It's actually nothing. You might be already thinking of several things I might ask you for this information. But I know that this information isn't of much value to you. Why? Because you might already know it."

"Of course you might actually not know what I am speaking and this is all new. Then I am at a serious loss. After all, this is all me betting on my instincts and my instincts tell me you know far more than I do about this stuff. This is all a bet, and I never make bets in which I lose."