Mutagen

Day 25 – 1:55 PM – Philippine General Hospital, Ermita, Metro Manila

Major Lopez stepped out of the opened Mobile Command Vehicle and looked around the temporary outpost they made. The teams that were supposed to enter the hospital were ready to go at command but the nervousness in their faces, especially the civilian groups, were apparent. Just several minutes ago, the outpost was attacked by several mutants from the hospital and the appearance of those mutants was too repulsive even if they were compared to the usual mutated infected.

Strangely, even though the outpost was just outside the front gate of the hospital, there were no leader types among the attackers. This made the Major feel that something bad would likely happen making him remind the people to be careful repeatedly through the command post.

After taking a peek at his watch on his left wrist, Major turned back and called unto the personnel in the command vehicle.

"Lieutenant Herrera, confirm the status of the sniper and monitoring groups."

"Yes sir!"

The man who was sitting in front of the transceiver immediately replied before speaking on the mouthpiece in his hand.

"Command to Support Teams. Command to Support Teams. Ground operations will commence in ETA five minutes. State your status. I repeat. Ground operations will commence in ETA five minutes. State your status."

After his voice faded, a series of replies came in one after another.

"This is Team Albatross. We're already in position."

"Team Barbet. Also in position."

"This is Team Cockatiel, we're we just arrive at the roof top."

"Team Dove. Already in position.

"Team Eagle. We're still two floors before our destination. There's a lot of infected in our building."

"Team Fairy." Irene's voice was heard. "We've been here for ten minutes already."

"Team Goshawk here! We're still in the middle floors. Our building had a lot of barricades blocking our advance. Wait. We found three survivors!"

Hearing the replies of the seven support teams that were tasked to position themselves on the roof top of buildings around the hospital compound, Lieutenant Herrera looked at Major Lopez.

Major Lopez entered the command vehicle and took the mouthpiece.

"This is Major Lopez. Team Eagle, double speed. If your team needs reinforcements, say it. Team Goshawk, we'll send a retrieval group to take away the survivors. Continue on the mission and say if your team needs tools to remove the barricades. As for the others, wait in position. We'll start on time."

"ROGER!"

"Team Eagle here. We could still manage. We'll get in position as soon as possible."

"Team Goshawk. Please send some tools. Some of the barricades blocking the way are nailed to the floor and the walls."

After contacting the support teams and the retrieval team to get the survivors found by Team Goshawk, the operation commenced.

***

Sounds of gunshots echoed across the whole compound as the teams of soldiers, Mutators and Evolvers stormed the three entrances of the hospital compound.

At that time however, as if waiting for their attack, the largest pods on the walls of the buildings within the compound burst open at the same time. It caused the gross smelling greenish liquid to splatter around the compound even covering the web like membrane that covered the grounds of the compound. In each pod, a mutated infected emerged.

The mutated infected were different from each pod. The monitoring personnel from Team Barbet that was positioned at the northern part of the hospital reported a mutated infected with bloated chest and moving in a strange manner came out of the pod in the northern side of the compound. Team Dove also reported a mutated infected that had bloated muscles in its whole body that was contracting and relaxing like a beating heart.

Upon spotting the irregular looking mutated infected, a plethora of loud gunshots echoed from six buildings around the hospital compound. It was the six teams composed of the sniper and monitoring groups. Their duty was to provide fire support and monitoring after all. Since the sudden threat appeared, they had to deal with it as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, not all of the mutated infected from the pods were killed. There were those that moved too fast, some had some impenetrable armor on their bodies and heads while the most alarming were those that moved to dodge the bullets. The fast moving ones were hard to aim at while the ones with armor had been blown away or were injured due to the high caliber sniper rifles. Those who dodged the bullets however…

Continuously dodged the shots fired at them.

These infected were those they called the [Leader Types]. They were the higher leveled mutated infected like those that led the horde of disfigured mutant infected to constantly attack Bay City in the past several days. It was still not known whether they developed intelligence since it was almost impossible to catch one and observe in captivity but the sure thing was that the [Leader Types] possessed high sense of danger and mentality similar to leaders of a pack of ferocious animals. Another troublesome thing was that they knew when to advance and retreat which made it several more times harder to kill them.

"Team Eagle to South Storm Team!" The voice of the leader of Team Eagle that managed to get in position in time could be heard. "We spotted a [Predator Type] towards your direction! Proceed with caution! We lost visuals of the target on Sector 9-4!"

[Predator Types], they were those infected that were not only fast moving but specialized in sneak attacks. It was unknown if they could sense if there was anyone looking at them but they were able to move away from the sights of people. When the target relaxed their guards, these kinds of infected were more likely to attack. Aside from being too agile, most of this kind of mutated infected had claws or blades on their upper limbs and had either too lean bodies or muscular limbs.

"Team Albatross to Main Storm Team!" The leader of Team Albatross that were positioned at a high building at the north east shouted at the radio sending his message to the teams at the main entrance. "We lost visuals of an infected we suspect as [Armor Type] and [Suicide Type] hybrid in Sector 2-2! Proceed with caution!"

[Armor Type], as the name implied, they were the infected that had hard skin or worse, had armors on their body. It was not a manmade armor but made of hardened biological matter. Most of the time, they were hard to damage even with hot weapons. Their obvious traits were their stiff movements due to hardened skin surface and most of them had rather larger body builds.

[Suicide Type], it was also the same as its name implied. They would behave the same as other infected, running towards people, biting and infecting. However, the problem comes when they were killed. Every single time one was killed, their bodies would explode into pieces. The worst thing however was that the damage their exploding bodies could do especially if their bodies contained concentrated acid or poison.

Normally, a mutated infected would have just one type to mutation. However, there were very rare times that the infected would mutate in a unique way which gave them characteristics of two or more types.

Major Lopez inside the command vehicle listened to the continuous exchange of voices on the radio. His expression was solemn. It was good that the people participating in this mission were briefed about the sectioning of the hospital compound making it easier to alert where the danger could come from. The map of the hospital had been divided into ten by five sections and each section had around fifty meter square area.

He did not expect however, that they would encounter a lot of advanced mutated infected inside the hospital compound. It seemed that the ones that attacked when they arrived and during the preparation of the temporary outpost were just the stragglers and not the main forces of the infected inside the compound. Looking at it, Major Lopez could not help but feel like the infected here were gathered as a hierarchal group where the lowest members were those disgusting looking mutated infected.

***

The leader of the ground troop soldiers which were the main attackers was the newly promoted Master Sergeant Keene Dela Rosa. After they arrived at Bay City back then, he participated in a lot of missions as a Mutator in the military and caused him to be promoted in rank. Like before, he was always the lead of the main attack force due to his ability being more suitable for close combat and killing.

With a M16 assault rifle in his left hand and two feet long blade made of bone on the other, he continuously killed the infected that came near him. Right at his moment, he was contending with an [Armor Type] and [Leader Type] Hybrid Mutated Infected.

The infected was a burly man without skin. The outlines of his muscles were too weighty in a literal manner. Although it had no skin or armor on its body, it was still defined as an [Armor Type] due to its bulky muscles being able to receive the impact of the bullets without being injured. Keene's bone blade however was another matter.

Compared to the impact and strength of a gunshot from an M16 assault rifle to Keene's strongest stab, the latter was way stronger. This was why he presented himself to deal with this hybrid infected. If not, it would be likely that this infected would go and rampage towards the other people killing them all in the process. The only thing that could damage this guy would be an explosion from inside its body or a high caliber sniper bullet.

However, it was a [Leader Type]. With its high sense of danger, it was able to avoid the shots coming from sniper rifles of the support teams up the rooftop of their respective buildings.

BAM!

Keene jumped back as the hybrid attacked him with a strong smash. After the smash missed and hit the ground, he jumped forward once more stabbing the outreached arm of the infected. The stab connected creating a bloody hole on the arm of the infected and caused blood to gush out of it. The infected wailed in pain for a bit before attacking Keene again.

With a single sidestep of Keene, the wide downward swing of the infected missed its target and its fist smashed unto the ground once more. This time however, the attack was stronger causing the ground to tremor a bit and destroyed the reddish membrane on the ground. It also caused dust and small rocks to fly which irritated Keene's eyes.

While Keene got disoriented, the infected attacked once more and Keene already expected himself to get it by the attack.

BANG!!!

A loud sound of a gunshot was heard coming from the building right in front of the hospital. The next thing Keene saw was the splatter of blood on his body and in front of him along the dead body of the infected that now had his head almost crushed by the impact of the high caliber bullet that entered its forehead.

Keene was surprised and the people around him, both soldiers and hired participants of this mission, were also the same. It was because they all knew that it was near impossible for a sniper to hit [Leader Type] infected due to their high sense of danger. This time however, it was obvious that the infected Keene was fighting was killed by a sniper.

This time, the radio in his belt sounded.

"Keene! Are you alright?"

It was Irene's voice.

"I am but it's a close call. Is it you?"

"No, it's Miss Mei. We can leave the [Leader Types] to her. Just distract them as much as possible and bring them to the open."

BANG!!!

Another [Leader Type] infected in the front yard of the hospital near Keene got killed with a head shot. Seeing that, he could not help but feel amazed. He was sure that even distracting the [Leader Types] would not work for other snipers.

"Okay thanks!"

While the two were talking on the radio, a voice suddenly interjected.

"Hey! You two love birds!" It was the voice of Major Lopez. "Don't use our emergency frequency to flirt! All of us can hear you two! Expect punishment when we return!"

"Sorry Major."

The two both apologized but Irene's voice was not really apologetic at all.