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Life After: The Basement
(© Bryan Way)

Page 2

"No risk, no reward."

Mia smiles and looks down at her skinny, jean-wrapped legs, then back at Eric as he ducks into the darkness. Something he does in this moment echoes, forcing her to look accusingly at the endless array of shadows coating the third floor of the four-level parking complex.  "Relax… when he shows up, you aren't gonna hear him." Eric mutters. Mia returns her gaze to Eric as he lies back on a dirty sleeping bag.

"You really think his network is strong enough to get the word out?" Mia whispers.

"He found us, didn't he? I'm more worried about actually getting him the intel."

"We could be in there for a week and find nothing…"

"MHC's the easy part… IBT's gonna be a fortress."

"…and even if we find anything worth taking, it could take weeks to parse the data…"

"Patience got us what we have thus far."

"That and hard work…"

Eric smiles, lifting a plastic water bottle in a makeshift toast that cuts her off. "No one's gonna forget that." He takes a long sip as Mia smiles dismissively.

"You asked me to keep the contingencies in mind…" Mia continues.

"I'm sorry, was I interrupting?"

"Dick…"

"Seriously, go ahead."

"We might not be able to get in. We might get stopped outside. We might have to turn back. We might have to deal with internal security. We might have to go in and out a few dozen times while evading detection. We might get captured, and if what we're onto is as big as we think, we might be killed. Or held indefinitely…"

"Shipped off to Guantanamo Bay? Anything's better than the US right now."

"Eric…"

"Just think of what'll happen if we pull this off… I hope when we get interviewed, someone asks us about life before this happened…"

"Eric…"

"…sorry. Then there's the Z-factor."

"…right, they tend to make planning much more difficult."

"Wait a second… are you saying… that you don't think we should do this?"

"Of course not… I'm not questioning your convictions, planning, or research. You asked me to keep you from spinning off the planet… all I'm saying is… we might reconsider the timing."

"If you're not ready for this…"

"Don't do that… patience, remember?"

"We're right on the verge, we're right on…"

"If it takes another week, I'm willing to make that sacrifice so we can get…"

"…we have no idea what could happen tomorrow… right now we still have water and power, but…"

"…if we assume IBT and MHC are responsible, we're going to keep having water and power…"

"Why don't you two just make out already?"

Mia and Eric jolt toward the dark figure entering the conversation. "Lequire, jesus…" Eric mutters, still shaking. "I told you, call me Chris… you're lucky you figured out how to argue quietly." Lequire says, dropping to his knees as he removes his backpack and opens it.

"Just tell us what you got."

"Got closer to IBT than before… there's definitely activity inside, and isn't them."

"Them?" Mia asks.

"The Zs. I can't find a single breach point, and considering the state of most buildings around here, that's saying something."

Lequire takes a hand-drawn map out of his backpack and hands it to Mia.

"What about Black Forest?" Eric asks.

"I'm still not convinced they're in on it…" Lequire responds.

"We did see the truck with the paw print."

"…right, and as I said before, he could be retired, operating independently, or just have really unfortunate taste in window decals…"

[ Continue to page 3 ]

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Genre:Living Dead
Type:Medium length story
Rating:6.44 / 10
Rated By:40 users
Comments: 0 users
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