boxofmisfits | A Man and his Tyrant

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A Man and his Tyrant

A week after Anders took this job in Raccoon City, things went to hell. It had seemed like such a nice offer, him fresh out of medical school, ready to save lives, pay off that college tuition, and Raccoon City seemed like a nice place to start his career.

Then a man came in who claimed he'd been attacked by someone who bit him. Then more cases like that, of people attacking each other. Patients died overnight. Then the bodies in the morgue rose up and attacked the doctors. Then patients rose up before they could be taken to the morgue. Finally, the whole city broke out in pandemonium. The dead rising, swarming the city, people rushing to get out.

As he packed a small backpack full of food, and other supplies, Anders was suddenly very grateful that his apartment hadn't allowed pets, and he'd left Ser Pounce-a-lot with Delilah Howe in the next state over.

Once he was out of the apartment, he checked to make sure the coast was clear before heading out into the street. The bridge out of the city was a long ways away, especially on foot, and he could only hope that luck would be on his side as he walked at a brisk pace.

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They tense slightly as the doctor opens the door, readying to deploy or pull the human back. But nothing happens. Good. The doctor will be safe for now, as he's supposed to be.

But they're not done driving yet. And now the doctor isn't looking at them. They reach foreward to tap a yes on the dividing wall of the cab, next to the doctor's head. Humans in the company usually understood that.

Usually. Sometimes they became confused. And others seemed startled to realize that they had responded at all. Those ones tried to ignore it.

Anders gets the message. "Alright."

He drives over the bridge, and is halfway across when droplets start to appear on his windshield and thunder sounds over head. Anders stops the van again. "Would you be alright with washing up in the rain? I know it's not exactly a hot shower, but you could get the blood off if you stand outside long enough."

More tension. Why are they stopping again, and so soon? They didn't see anything of importance. They are still close to infected.

It takes a moment for them to process the question. Being asked is confusing. Usually they are told, and they respond accordingly. When asked what they want, they don't know how to respond.

Eventually they decide that the doctor is saying they should do it, so they will. They carefully open the back doors, the suspension creaking and rising up off its springs as they exit.

The rain is coming down fast now, and when they raise their hands to methodically scrub their face and scalp, they can feel the blood loosening from their skin almost immediately.

They can also feel it running down their neck and trying to get under the belts around their neck, down to where bullets trapped in their coat are clinking against each other. They want to get rid of those, but their gloves and outside of their coat are still covered in blood. Washing that is more important now.

After this, they will have to get back into the van, and kneel down among the bodies again. They wonder if they could lift the van so that the rain could come in and clean it too.

It probably wouldn't work. Cars tend to break when they turn them over. But at least they can pull the bodies out and throw them over the edge of the bridge.

They reach for the closest two, letting them drag on the ground rather than getting their coat bloody again.

Anders gets out to watch Mr. X dump the bodies, looking out at the city. He can see fires in the distance, but there seem to be no walking undead in this area, or more of those monsters with the long tongues.

Off on the other side, he can see something come out of the sidewalk, likely from the metro system. His eyes widen. Whatever it is, it's big and it's on fire. Relief washes through him as it falls into the water.

"I don't suppose that was an older cousin of your's?" He's mostly being snarky, leaning on the rail.

He reels back when, a few minutes later, something leaps out of the water onto a bridge. It's bigger now, and certainly not humanlike any longer. "What the?"

The bodies are light, delicate, and their armor makes them sink with a satisfying splash. The doctor says something, but they don't understand. The human doesn't sound concerned, so they continue with their work.

But they stop in their tracks as the water down the river seems to explode, something rocketing out and onto a bridge.

They do not know this thing. It looks completely unfamiliar. But when other Tyrants became unstable, they changed too. They were stronger. More aggressive. And as it moved, it was clear it was hunting something.

Whatever it was, its orders conflicted with theirs. They dropped the last bodies on the pavement, picking up the doctor instead and returning them to the van, walking faster. No wasting time. Once the other bioweapon had killed its target, it would start searching for more. That was a threat. One they could only face if they also began to change.

And they did not want that.

It's like watching a car crash, somehow he can't look away from that thing, and he wishes he had binoculars. He makes a small noise of protest when Mr. X grabs him, but it probably is for the best that they get out of here before that thing sees them.

He hops back into the driver's seat and resumes driving. "Something is going on here, and somehow I doubt these zombies are the result of a rotten cheeseburger or a new strain of mad cow."

They set the human down and returned to the back of the van. It still smelled strongly of blood, but none of it was the doctor's. They would keep it that way. That meant leaving the city.

And then... something. They weren't sure when this mission would end. The company would recall them. But the company had been wrong.

Maybe they would be right again, sometime. Until then, this was what they would do. And they would do what the doctor told them to do. The doctor knew more than they did.

But not about the infected.

Maybe they would ignore the doctor sometimes, too. They weren't sure.

Anders was going to ditch the van the moment he could afford to, with it reeking of blood and no way to hose it out. He powered through the stench and resumed the drive, looking out the window once or twice to see the big monster again. It had retreated to the clock tower, from the look of it.

"I don't recall anything like that in George Romero's movies."

The doctor was looking at something, but in the armored rear compartment, there were no windows. They shifted their weight to bleed off a little frustration, but recoiled as they felt the van's suspension wobble beneath them. This had happened too many times now, but there was nowhere to settle more firmly that wasn't covered in blood.

They steadied themselves against the dividing panels between the cab and the rear, close behind the doctor. That way they could kneel with more stability, and watch part of the view through the glass, seeing new things go by that they'd never seen before.

They had never been able to do this in a moving transport. They were always locked away in their container, ready for deployment.

Anders drove in silence for a bit, still thinking about that monster and how scared Mr. X had seemed. Could Mr. X transform like that too? Was the monster made by the same people who made Mr. X? Or that thing with the tongue.

"You know, maybe when we get to safety, we can start learning sign language together. That way we can communicate easier. Or I can buy you a pencil and paper." Maybe an oversized novelty pencil, because those huge hands might have otherwise broken a regular pencil or pen.

They weren't sure if that would succeed. Sign language was like the visual signals they had been taught to recognize. Hand signs that humans could use to direct them. They understood them, but they had never been instructed to make the signals themself. Communication was difficult. They weren't sure if they could or wanted to.

But they adapted and learned to carry out tasks. That was what they were made for. They tapped another yes.

But something about the thoughts caught them off-guard after a moment. Why were they unsure if they wanted to? They did something, or they didn't, based on what was needed. Sometimes the result was satisfying, sometimes it wasn't. This feeling never factored into their thinking.

"When we escape Raccoon City and find a motel with WiFi, I'll see about downloading a language learning app." Otherwise Anders was going to have to learn Morse code with Mr. X, or get them a very large pencil and paper pad.

He kept his eyes on the road as he drove, even running over a zombie or two in his way. Anders kept his eyes open for more of those monsters with the long tongue, or if that giant beast had a brother. So far nothing. The bridge was just up ahead.

They didn't fully understand what the doctor meant, but they shouldn't need to. Humans talked constantly, and most of the time they simply let it flow by them, meaningless noise.

The outside was holding their attention instead. They followed every infected with their eyes, gauging if they would be a threat. They were beyond the quarantine line. Other guard posts must have failed, before the one they destroyed. Annoying. It would mean they would have to remain on the lookout for longer, until the area was sterilized.

But with the armored van and their continued vigilance, the doctor would remain safe.

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A Man and his Tyrant

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