Xiao closed his eyes in despair, Haine roughly threw him to the ground, the force threatening to crack his spine. His bones ached and tears ran down his face at the impact. He put a hand to his sore throat, coughing and gulping in air desperately. By his ear the steel blade sliced into the ground, the edge of the edge scraping against his cheek. He felt a sharp pain and the wetness of blood dripping down the side of his face. The deep threatening timbre of Heine's voice above him dominated his senses.
"If these materials cannot be used, I will cut through your flesh and tear out your bones." Every word spoken was clear, concise and laced with enough danger that Xiao felt the devil himself was delivering them.
Xiao realized in that moment this man was much more terrifying than the zombies.
Ah, he thought to himself, I don't want to die.
Mark pulled him up from the floor and pushed the payload into his arms. Lowering his voice, he whispered,"Didn't realize you had such courage. Daring to steal a kiss from our Boss...and he is a complete germophobe."
Xiao was at a complete loss for words. If Heine had only been wearing his respirator or if his hadn't slipped off, then there was no way he would have rubbed against him with his...his...
Lips?
He really didn't want his bones torn out by Heine. Captain White was equally terrified for him and hurried over to help Xiao Yan. After 10 ten minutes, they managed to open the first device and Mark handed them a container to collect the material. Xiao and Captain White sighed in relief and they repeated the procedure to extract the rest of the uranium. Mark put the containers on his back and set off to leave. Xiao, still quite disturbed by recent happenings, glanced over at Heine. Seeing that his eyes still held a murderous gleam, he worried that he was going to be left behind to be devoured by zombies.
No matter how hopeless the situation he had no choice but to follow Heine out of the facility.
When Mark kicked the door open there were countless zombies lumbering about. Heine blades flashed and zombie heads tumbled down. Xiao Yan stepped over their sticky bodies on his way out.
The zombies kept coming at them and Xiao Yan almost had his head taken off from both sides. Several times the corpses were a mere chomp away from his shoulder, Heine ignored his plight and kept moving forward. Luckily Mark noticed and pulled him away, otherwise he would have met a rather tragic death right there.
Finally they reached the aircraft,Heine buckled the harness around his waist and activated the device. The rope shot up into the sky and he disappeared into the aircraft pulling the rope into the cabin. Xiao looked up befuddled.
What about him? He had come with Heine and now he left him by himself?
Mark sighed and seeing a zombie headed toward them, he picked up the captain and his own harness.
"Hey rookie, Grab onto my arm!"
Seeing a strand of hope, Xiao Yan desperately grabbed at it and rushed to hold onto Mark's arm. Immediately he flew up with them toward the craft. He ascended so fast he felt that if he relaxed a single muscle he would end up falling.
Finally back in the craft, Xiao's arms were limp and he collapsed inside the cabin panting heavily. Liv pushed open the door to the cockpit and grinned widely at Xiao Yan.
"Hey, I heard you dared something no one has before." Xiao leaned back to slow his breathing, both arms trembling uncontrollably.
"I didn't dare to do it either."
It just happened...Xiao thought feeling very wronged.
"If you could, please don't mention it again."
"Well," Live said with a flirtatious lift of the brow, "maybe I will hear about you rolling in the sheets with the boss in a few days time. You know, the guys at the base are always bored, never anything to talk about."
"What...?" Xiao's breathing is now even more ragged. He is a man...with a man...the hell...roll in the sheets?
"Don't you know though that kissing the boss is quite the death sentence. I heard our special forces can crush the skull of an ordinary person if they get too passionate."
"There is nothing between me and Colonel Burton." Xiao tried desperately to stop Liv's wildly running imagination, but it was futile.
"You cannot imagine a more perfect specimen than the Boss, though he has not engaged with anyone since entering the special task force." Liv's face was alight with excitement as though she was sharing a big secret with Xiao. "Also, the colonel has an obsession with cleanliness...other than you, he hasn't accepted anyone." Liv's imagination continued unabated running off into the wild on its own in a completely unrealistic direction. "He hasn't vented any desires for years, you should also know that the x virus makes that aspect of the soldier particularity demanding. Of course once you are beneath him he would absolutely break your bones and shatter your skeleton. Your guts would collapse....severe bleeding... Oh god, I suppose your anus would rot first!"
Xiao's shoulders shuddered in terror and a chill froze each individual vertebrae of his spine.
"No ... No, it's not.."
Liv continued to ramble over him.
"But it doesn't matter. Since we also contain the x-virus, which is very easily absorbed into you guys. By mouth, intestines, any mucous membranes really. Even if you were tossed about to near death you can keep going so long as you kiss the boss. All your injuries will heal within 30s." Liv's teasing face was full of malice, soaking up the terror in Xiao's expression as he absorbed the information and imagined the horrors of such abuse to the body. Unending suffering repeated over and over,forced to endure the torture only to nearly die and be reincarnated back into the same unending agony.
Of course the probability of any of this actually occurring with Heine is close to absolute zero
" I wish you a happy life." At Xiao's horrified expression, Liv burst into laughter.
He finally realized the other party was cruelly teasing him.
In the end though, Liv's words fueled Xiao's imagination of his future. Not a delusion of rolling in bed with Heine, but more the myriad of ways that man could torture him.
The aircraft finally neared the dock to unload the materials they gathered, Xiao stood ready to disembark.
Liv attempted to get in touch with the tower to get permission to land at a particular platform. At they neared the landing site, the craft suddenly gained altitude.
Xiao grasped the safety rails to steady himself as the sudden change in direction knocked him off balance. The occupants of the craft shouted in confusion and surprise.
What the hell? What was happening?
Xiao knew their pilot was Heine and from the experience before, he suspected that he had been invaded by a blocker."
The blockers were so called because they hacked the brain through the terminal connection. They initially disturbed the person's thinking and then invaded deeper into the structure of the brain, destroying and mining data. They even created a 'maze of thoughts' to trap the person into a coma like state while they extracted the information.
Everyone in the special task force received training and thus has a very strong resistance to blockers. Xiao knows that Heine Burton is the best; it would not be easy to invade such a strong will.
The aircraft was almost into the sky when a strong vibration ran through the craft. They twisted into a rapid maneuvering pattern and from the window Xiao watched a missile speed past.
The missile had been launched from the platform. It was a tracking missile and although it had initially missed, it would continue to adjust its coordinates until it successfully took down its target.
"Oh--God!" It's a tracking missile! We're dead! "
Panic once again erupted inside the cabin.
Xiao leaned back into his chair, no strength to even wryly smile at the situation.
How many disasters can befall one day? How many times is he to suffer? After all this, is he doomed in the end?
"We're going to die!" Oh, my God! We should eject! Maybe we can survive." ...
Several students were crying hysterically.
"Idiot, you just want to feed the zombies?" Liv stared at the student who made the suggestion.
"Do you think the pilot of this machine is such a useless guy? Or have you forgotten this is the special forces here. Our specialty is not research, it is combat."
Xiao didn't know how many times the missile grazed the engine of the air craft, or how many times he felt the heat from the missile as they narrowly avoided collision. Xiao's forehead was soaked in a cold sweat that dripped down his face. At his side many of the students clenched their eyes shut, biting their lip in anticipation of their final moment.
The craft overturned, twisting and spinning in the air, the movements jarring his neck to the point of breaking.
In front of him Liv sat calm and unruffled, it was clear she had no reservations about the skill level of Heine and Mark.
"You can also close your eyes," Liv looked at Xiao Yan, "Otherwise you might get dizzy."
"I want to see the moment Colonel Burton and Mark find their chance to take out the tracking missile."
After nearly 720 degrees of rotation,the students no longer have the breath to scream.
"What chance?" Liv asked eyes alight with interest, her calmness was in stark contrast to everyone else.
Xiao's eyes sank closed. He was a class B student simply because he was too lazy to think, not because he wasn't good at it.
At that moment the engine made a disconcertingly frantic noise and the mountains rushed up toward them.
Screams rang throughout the craft.
Xiao opened his eyes as they grazed the peaks, their speed and friction, from the bottom of the craft against the rocks, burning up the vegetation.
The tracking missile was defeated in that moment, as it slammed straight into the mountains, breaking apart and shattering. The scene and suspense painted a spectacular picture.
Xiao's palms are covered in glass shards and he can feel the heat from the blast.
Everyone sighed in relief and several students burst into tears.
"We made it. We are alive. Thank God."
"We avoided the missile!"
Many of the students then promptly passed out.
Liv however did not take a breath in relief.
"Boss! Has the platform been taken over by the Surge."
***note: this organization is sometimes referred to as the Surge and sometimes as the Flood other times as the Wave then sometimes Tidal Wave. I decided to go with Surge, but if I make a mistake and you read flood/wave/tide later on, know that it is the same thing***
The Surge was a mysterious organization that was devoted to studies on the comet virus. Their bases, leaders and numbers are completely unknown. The only thing they knew for certain- they are the enemy.
"Send alert information to the Shire and all bases."
The platform they had planned on docking with was equivalent to a supply station for long distance aircraft. It was not used for any scientific research purposes, but it recently had become the target of the Surge. After occupying the platform, they remained silent and used it for attack and supply purposes.
"How did Colonel Burton know there was a problem with the platform?" Xiao asked.
"When you walk through death numerous times your intuition becomes an important weapon." Liv said with an enigmatic grin.