The Firefight

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The four Hunk and the others watched the little girl weeping over her parents' bodies. Though they felt a pang of pity, they kept their guns trained on her.

If the girl suddenly went berserk too, they wouldn't hesitate to shoot her dead.

After all, one of Sui Bian's orders was to "provide assistance only when the safety of the combat personnel can be ensured."

To Sui Bian, these Alphas were priceless.

Besides, Hunk and the others weren't fools. Who knew whether the girl was genuinely pitiful or just putting on an act? Naturally, they couldn't let their guard down.

"Sir!" The leader of Team B, posted in the hallway outside, called loudly to Hunk. "We've got a situation!"

At that, Hunk glanced at the girl and said calmly, "Put her in restraints. The rest of you, come with me."

"Yes, sir."

As he spoke, one Alpha took a nylon restraint from his right pants pocket under the cover of a teammate, then bound the still-crying girl.

The girl tried to fight back, but she stood no chance against an Alpha. They quickly restrained her on the floor, leaving her unable to move.

Meanwhile, Hunk and another Alpha stepped out of the room and into the hallway guarded by Team B.

"Grr...! Grr...!"

When he reached the hallway, Hunk saw a large number of tenants emerging from their rooms, arms outstretched and mouths open as they let out the same low growls as the couple before.

Their skin was deathly pale, their eyes dull, and they charged toward Hunk and the others, only...

They were a little slow.

Their movements were also shuffling and uncoordinated, much like the "Infected" B.O.W.s USS had once fought on Rockfort Island—zombies.

But zombies wouldn't sit obediently at a dining table like living people, nor would they repeat the same motions with a knife and fork.

"Ah! Help! Help!"

"Run!"

"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

Many seemingly normal tenants also rushed out of their rooms alongside the "Pseudo-Zombies."

Panicked, the tenants scrambled toward the apartment building's front entrance. Some, their legs numb from sitting too long, fell to the floor and crawled away on all fours.

At the sight of them,

"Bang!" Hunk shot the nearest "Pseudo-Zombie." At the same time, he raised his voice and shouted down the hallway, "Everyone who doesn't want to die, get down! Otherwise, don't blame us for what happens!"

Then Hunk ordered his men, "Open fire at will!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Bang! Bang-bang!"

"Splatter! Thud!"

At Hunk's command, the four Alphas from Team B unleashed a hail of gunfire. Shots and the wet sounds of bodies being torn apart echoed through the entire hallway.

Hunk and another Alpha from Team A provided cover. Once Team B ran out of ammunition, they would take over the firing, avoiding the awkward situation of everyone reloading at once.

After just one burst, the four members of Team B still had ammunition left in their magazines, but the first-floor hallway had already been cleared out.

The heads of dozens of "Pseudo-Zombies" had been precisely blown apart. Their bodies slumped lifelessly to the floor, while sticky black blood stained the carpet and left the hallway in disarray.

Of course, among the bodies were normal tenants who had ignored Hunk's warning and been accidentally killed.

"Ah... my arm..."

"Help... someone, please..."

The hallway still rang with the weak cries of tenants lying on the floor, wounded by stray AP-FMJ rounds.

The hallways in old apartment buildings were narrow. Even with their Mechanical Exoskeletons, Hunk and the others had an accuracy rate of over 99% at close range, but they still couldn't make bullets curve like in a Wanted poster.

So the unlucky tenants who'd heard Hunk's warning but failed to act—or hadn't heard it at all—were left dead or wounded by mistake.

The tenants who had dropped to the floor in time were spared. But with all four members of Team B firing at once, they were too frightened to speak loudly or move.

That made things easier for the Alphas.

The four members of Team B reloaded in turn, while the two Team A Alphas who had restrained the girl returned to the hallway to cover them.

Standing in the middle of the group, Hunk glanced up and down the hallway to assess the situation. Then he calmly issued orders through his throat-mic earpiece:

"Teams C and D, enter the apartment. Once you've confirmed the first floor is completely clear, seal off the building. Team E, protect the technicians as they assess the condition of the bodies and survivors.

"Teams A and B, come with me. We're heading up."

"Yes, sir." Several cold replies came over the comms.

After giving his orders, Hunk led Teams A and B up the stairs via the hallway on the right side of the first-floor lobby.

At that moment, the eight Alphas from Teams C and D also climbed down from the armored truck and quickly entered the apartment building's lobby. Working in pairs, they began checking the first-floor rooms one by one.

After confirming the first floor was secure, Team C helped Teams A and B clear out the "Pseudo-Zombies" and search for the source of the anomaly that had caused all this.

Team D remained behind in the first-floor lobby.

"Bang—bang-bang—bang—" Gunshots rang out without pause throughout the apartment building.

Just then, four Omicrons from Team E escorted four technicians in white hazmat suits, each carrying a silver toolbox, into the first-floor lobby.

The reason Team E wasn't made up of Alphas was that the wounded men who had been shot in the left shoulder and buttock still hadn't recovered. So they had brought in an Omicron team to assist.

As they entered,

the technician at the front raised his left arm and checked the screen of the personal computer strapped to his wrist. A few seconds later, he reported over the radio:

"Mr. Sui, we haven't detected any abnormal microorganisms in the air. Still, as a safety precaution, I recommend sealing off the entire building and disinfecting it...

"Yes, sir. Yes, understood. Don't worry."

After reporting to his "superior," the technician turned to the others and ordered, "Everyone, our task is still to collect samples. The follow-up team will take care of sealing off the building. Let's get moving."

"Yes, sir." "Yes, sir." "Yes, sir."

With those slightly muffled words, the four technicians got to work.

First, they set their toolboxes down in the spacious lobby, opened them, and took out the tools and instruments they needed.

Then Team D's Alphas stayed behind in the lobby, while Team E escorted the technicians into the hallway on the first floor's left side.

The technicians began collecting blood, hair, tissue, and other samples from the "Pseudo-Zombies" and the tenants' bodies.

As for the tenants who had survived, they were now obediently following the technicians' instructions to the first-floor lobby, where they crouched on the ground with their hands over their heads under the watch of Team D's Alphas.

After collecting samples from the bodies, the technicians began carefully examining the rooms, hallways, and corners.

Just then...

"All units, this is Hunk. We've confirmed an anomaly in Room 407 on the fourth floor. Teams D and E, protect the technicians."

Hunk's voice came over the radio. His tone remained calm, as if the anomaly had done nothing to rattle him.