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About half way back to the hotel, Ryu came over the radio, sounding rather....displeased.

"Skyline", he told me, "relay this message to your tank commander, do not come back to the hotel, go straight to the resort maintenance office, your friends require urgent assistance."

"Okay", I replied tapping the tank commander on the shoulder.

"Yes sir?", he asked.

"Ryu said to head to the Resort's maintenance office", I said over the engine.

He nodded to me and shouted to the driver, "head for Resort Maintenance."

There was an unintelligible shout from inside the tank and we soon turned off into a tunnel I hadn't seen on the way here. It was barricaded and upon looking hard enough, I realized my natural night vision was kicking in. I couldn't see a whole lot past the very nasty looking barricade staffed by two M11 Sentry Guns and two Autonomous APC's packing some serious heat.

"Why the hell do we have guided missile trucks out here?", The tank commander asked shutting off the engine and exiting the tank.

"Did Ryu put them here?", I asked as the Medic trucked pulled in behind us and the driver put the transmission in park, but left the engine running.

"He would have told me", the Commander said checking over the trucks visually and then checking their computers with his PDA, "well...that can't be right."

"What?", I asked.

"It says they've engaged over 60 hostile targets in the 8 days they've been here", the commander said, "doesn't make any sense though...both these trucks don't even carry that many missles, never mind the fact I can't get any video feed from their cameras."w

"Maybe the Sentry Guns did most of the fighting", I said, "two .50 BMG's can do a lot of damage, seen it done myself."

"Maybe", the commander said checking the ammunition reserves on the Sentry guns, shaking his head when he was done.

"What?", I asked again.

"Topped off", he said, "either Ryu put these here and forgot about them, or someone else is coming back here to resupply them."

"He did forget he had those guys out there on the bridge", I said, "so I suppose it is...."

I stopped mid sentence as I heard the unmistakable sound of zombie breathing. A low gasp, like that of someone whose suffocating that no matter what your doing just freezes blood.

This was different though.

It was more strained, like the zombie was actually trying to get a breath and having severe problems. I could also hear the sound of a heartbeat, though just barely. It wasn't normal rate for humans, or even Xeno's for that matter, it was much faster. From what I could hear, maybe a thousand BPM, possibly 1250. What ever was making these sounds seemed to be path finding towards us, given the pattern of the sounds of it's footsteps and the occasional annoyed sigh.

"Uhhh...sir?", I said, "I hear something."

"What do you hear Skyline?", he asked coming back to the tank.

"A zombie I think", I said.

"You think?", he asked.

I nodded, "breathing kind of matches, strained and difficult, but it seems to me as though the entity, whatever it is, is trying to breath, I can also hear a very fast heart beat and what maybe sounds like it's attempting to path find it's way here."

"Someone injured maybe?", the commander asked as the tank roared to life, shaking the entire tunnel and prompting a blood curdling scream to echo through the tunnel back at us, drowning out the sounds of both the Diesels.

"Somehow I doubt that", I said, changing the magazine in my FAL, "will I fit inside this tank?"

"You should fit down there with the...", the commander was interrupted as Mike came over the radio, there were copious amounts of gunfire in the background, not a good sign.

"Skyline!", he said, "please tell me that first roar I heard was that tank!?"

"Yeah, it was", I told him, "the hell is going on back there?"

"There are HUNDREDS of these fuckers!", Mike said, "we got the truck but we're surrounded and can't escape, could do with some badass armor right about now!"

"En Route now", the commander said as the tank lurched forward, crawling over the heavy barricade, "Sarah, you and the others head back to the hotel."

"Rodger", the driver of the Deuce said backing out of the tunnel and driving away. The commander and I slipped down into the turret, sealing the two hatches behind us. The inside of the tank was rather nicely done, not what you expect for a tank. The floors were covered with a surprisingly soft carpet, the seats were Recaro Tanker seats and they were staggered to keep out of the way of the transmission tunnel, which was transparent, allowing me to see the blurry driveline. The gunner's and driver's seats were set into the floor about half way, which in hindsight explained why the tank itself sat so high. The commander's seat was set on the side of the driveline opposite mine and like the other two, was set in the floor. His seat had a twin screen monitor at it, one of which showed the tank's vital signs, Horsepower, Torque, Boost Pressure, Gear Selected, Current Speed, ammunition reserves and the other, a feed from the front camera.

"Put this on", he said handing me a helmet as I strapped in, "the big gun's yours."

"How does that work?", I asked tapping the side of the helmet before putting it on.

"Just point an shoot, really no different from your FAL, just remember you have to reload after each shot."

"How am I suppose to reload?", I asked as the lights shut off.

"Mechanism's right above us, just think about how much you wish you had a second shot and you'll get one."

"Moving out now sir", the driver said as my HUD came on. I got an Analog RPM gauge, rounds available for the big gun, boost, current gear and a targeting crosshair, which was red.

"Why is my crosshair red?", I asked as the tank shifted into second gear at 2500 RPM.

"Hold on", the gunner said, I heard the clicks of a few buttons and seconds later the reticle turned gray, "there' cannon's all yours."

"Sweetness", I said as we looped around a corner, slowly coming to a stop.

If I was given a single word to describe what I saw....horrific. Between us and our friends on the other side of a big ass barricade at the end of this thing were three things. Old cars, ceiling high piles of dead people, and what I guessed had to be Martin's end goal, or goals. They stood bipedal, like a person, retained a mostly human shape and carried themselves like maybe someone with a slightly achy back would. However, that was there the human side ended and the Xenomorph began. Down the front of their torso were ten ribs. They grew out forward, straight down the middle and then curved around to the creature's back. I couldn't see their backs, however, I'm going to put money on the idea that they had some kind of spinal protection as well. They each had a piece of Chitin guarding their knee's, elbow's, tops of it's hands, encircling it's wrists and neck and a four jointed, mandible like jaw that was lined with perfectly sized teeth, lots of them. Another feature that was hard to miss was the lack of rot, none of them appeared, at least from what I could see, to have any kind of rot on it's flesh at all, in fact, it looked perfectly normal. None of them were wearing any clothes, so everything was clearly defined. The scary part? A good amount of them were female and looked pregnant.

And all of this was before my mind was assaulted with the thoughts of these things. They were....just indescribable. Nothing but a desire for violence, flesh and blood. Their telepathic abilities were fucking strong if they could get into my head.

"God, what the hell are those things?", the driver asked shifting down to low gear.

"Evil", I sighed rubbing my head, "be thankful you can't hear what their thinking."

"Either their just fat or whatever that is breeds really, really fast", the gunner said.

"Martin's end goal", I said, "the perfect blend of Xeno and human. We can't let any of them leave this encounter alive, if they find the hotel, no one stands a chance. How many of those shell's we have?"

"20", the gunner said, "more than enough to cause some serious carnage."

"Gimme 'em all", I said.

"Rodger that", the gunner said as the tank started forward, prompting the creatures to scream and charge straight at us. The green "Magazine Loaded", on my HUD turned red, switching to, "Magazine depleted, switching ammunition type."

"Holy shit", the driver muttered under his breath.

"They ain't gonna put a scratch on this Abrams no way", I said, "keep your shit together."

"Hey Skyline", the commander asked, "what do you do when your M2 Machine gun fires too slow to deal with the creeps?"

"Switch to the mini!", I smiled as the mag switch finished and a green, "Magazine Loaded, fire control ready", flash across my HUD.

"20 bullets says I can kill more zombies than you", The commander said as I let one of the shotgun rounds go, the cloud of buckshot obscured the camera's view, shredded through cars, knocked chunks of concrete off the walls, toppled two of the body piles and absolutely annihilated the entire first wave of the creature's attack on the tank. A few of them that weren't instantly turned into a fine green mist found their way underneath the tracks of the Abrams, going to a rather grisly demise. The Minigun, aided by autonomous fire from the M2, cleaned up what the buckshot missed, which wasn't a whole lot. I was reminded during this short, 30 second fight just how easily anything made of metal can completely ruin anything made of something soft and squishy, the tank used a total of 320 rounds to eradicate what had to be about 1,000 of Martin's creatures. Even though we easily crushed them, it was scary to think what might have happened if we had to face them without the tank, probably the exact opposite.

"Wonder how many more of these hives there are spread around the resort?", I asked.

"Hopefully this is the only one", the commander said.

"Wishful thinking boss", the driver said, "and the scary thing is, we found this by accident. There could be 2 more, or there may be 4,000 more."

"God I hope it's the former", the commander said, "were we taping that by the by?"

"Yes sir", the TV operator said.

"Good, make sure that tape get's to Ryu when we get home",the commander said as the tank slowed to a stop again, a giant concrete barricade at the end of the tunnel with light seeping in through the cracks between it was blocking the exit. As we stopped, Mike came over the radio.

"Guys, now would be a really good time for that armor!"

"We're coming on the office now", the commander said, "hang in there sir! ETA in 20 seconds!"

"EMAT barrier", I said, "do we shoot it down or smash through it?"

"Smash it of course", the driver said. The tank shifted into low gear. The driver held the clutch and revved the engine out to 5,000 RPM before letting the clutch go. The tank launched forward and went through 1st and second gear before making contact with the wall, smashing straight through it and into a crowd of zombies, who now turned their attention to us. Across the street from where we were, I could see the rest of my friends. Mike, James, Allen, Jacob and Matt were on top of the water truck in various different positions, trying to avoid being grabbed by one of the many rotting hands below them. It made me wonder what they'd been doing to attract so many ghouls, seeing as I could tell from a glance all their weapons were suppressed.

"The Calvary has arrived!", Mike shouted into the radio, "the hell did you guys do? Stop for coffee?"

"The hell did you do to get their attention?", I asked.

"Nothing!", Mike said, "they ambushed us! Like they knew we were coming! Send one of those rounds by this truck so I can get it running!"

I turned the cannon so the shot was parallel to the driver's side and let the round go, toppling the ghouls like a line of dominoes. Mike wasted no time in shouldering his M4 and getting into the driver's seat. The truck soon shook and blew black smoke. There was a loud grinding noise as Mike put the truck in gear.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!", Mike said as the driver of the tank put it back into low gear. We went up hill in low gear, the others hanging onto the top of the truck for dear life. At the top, Mike put the truck in park and stepped out. I climbed out of the tank to meet him.

"You have no idea how close we came to getting eaten", he sighed, "good save brother."

"As always", Jacob said.

"Don't mention it", I said looking back down the hill. It wasn't that steep, but it was more than enough to keep the zombies stumbling and falling trying to scale it, "you said they were waiting for you?"

Mike nodded, "The descended on us as soon as we started the truck. They came from all sides, so we had no way of escaping."

I thought for a moment, "somehow, I think I know why."

"Then please share", James said.

"All Xenomorphs, or anyone with a Xenomorphic parent, has telekinetic abilities", I said, "the creatures in the lab on Ios were no different. It was so weak it was basically worthless, but it was there. It;s different this time around. The tunnel we came out of? It was packed to the brim with what I'm certain was what was in the darkest pits of Martin's head when he set out to blend human's and Xeno's into the perfect race. There were probably about 1,000 of them and they were basically drooling Telekinetic energy. In the tunnel, I could hear their thoughts. Their smart, very smart, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were able to exercise some kind of mind control over the regular zombies."

James and Jacob exchanged glances, then James spoke up.

"How is that even possible?" he asked, "how do you control a rotting brain? How does a rotting brain think!?"

"I suspect what was in the tunnel isn't dead to begin with", I said, "for one, they had no signs of rot, in fact, most of them looked rather...normal, shall we say. Plus, some of the females that were there were pregnant, I'm not making that up."

There was a sigh from Mike, the rest of them stayed quiet.

"It just keeps getting better", Matt sighed from the top of the truck, "glad I'm not human."

"You can still get infected", Jacob said, "just because it won't kill you doesn't mean it won't give you the worst time of your life."

"Fuck you", Matt said,

"Fuck you", Jacob said.

"Enough", I said, "let's get back to the hotel and inform Sarah of what's going on."