Hostage Situation Act V

Chapter Eight: Exit Strategy
"We gotta get out of here. The question is..." Rico expressed, "How?"

"Every entrance is locked down. We checked." Burnside explained. The doctor informed them all: "Once in lockdown, there's no way out."

The dispute grew louder inside the small leisure room. The force argued amongst themselves, when Richards woke up. "I can't feel my... shit." He realizes his arm was severed, and he remembers. He looks down at the stump where his arm was. "Alright, what plans do we have for escape?" The crippled officer asked.

"There is one way out." Mendez offered.

The doctor exclaims that there is not. "No, there are no ways out! In case there is a breach, the entire facility locks down! We cannot get out of here."

"So you're telling me," Burnside inferred, "that you designed this facility with failsafes to keep these psychos from getting out, so the facility would lock down on breach... Yet, a paramilitary group was able to get inside before the facility got locked down, the patients had escaped before the facility locked down, and then *somehow*, the whole place got locked down when they got outside? Really, we just got locked with half of them while the other half got locked out with the rest of the-"

The doctor cut him off: "Some subjects got out? Outside? No, no, no, that wasn't supposed to-"

"Regardless, whatever contingencies you guys had in place for this building failed. We have to find a way out of here. What was the plan exactly? To just lock them in? If nobody else can get inside, how is this place supposed to be secured?" Rico interrupted, and then asked.

"We were *supposed* to starve them. They are compromised after ninety days with the brains intact. Then, we open the place-"

"HOW?" Burnsides asked, frantically.

"Shit..." the doctor stuttered.

"Speak, bitch." Rico told him.

"The place has a failsafe. exactly one-hundred days and fifteen hours later, the place is opened for recovery crews to gather samples. Otherwise, the place goes up in smoke." The doctor explained.

"You blow this place up? How?" Richards asked.

"There's a killswitch that detonates explosives throughout the facility. The place is leveled. Even underground, it forms a crater and destroys everything underneath. The generators, tunnels, labs, everything."

"Labs?" Burnside asked.

"Laboratories. Where we performed... research." The doctor answered.

"You mean," Mendez retorted, "Illegal human experimentation?"

"We discovered the secret to neural immortality!"

"Yeah, and look where that got you. A facility full of insane, cannibalistic monsters straight out of a goddamn zombie movie. You're going to get tried after this." Mendez informed the man.

"If we get out of this." The doctor added.

"We will. Because of Fireteam Five." Mendez told the team.

"What are you talking about? Fireteam Five is dead downstairs. They were one of the first groups we lost contact with. They are probably slowly being infected. If we wait any longer, they're going to wake up." Burnside argued.

"No, because they made a breach in the basement parking lot. Any security the building had wouldn't cover a makeshift breach made with charges, would it?" Mendez rhetorically aske. The doctor began to sweat, panicked. Richards ended: "So it's settled. We go to the parking lot. Probably through the basement, right? We'll get out through the bottom floor, and I'm sure the doctor will help with that."

The doctor reaches into his pocket. "I'm not so sure about that, Officer." Burnside grabbed his sidearm, but. Shit, he was fast.

The doctor pulled a scalpel and moved towards the door. Rico was in his way, slinging forward his SIG556, but was too late. The doctor slashed straight across the SWAT Sergeant's throat. The doctor opened the door wide, and Burnside jumped from his chair and ran after the man, drawing his handgun up and firing. Rico's throat opened and sprayed blood out onto the officers, as he collapsed to the floor. Richards drew up and knelt over Rico. "Fucking...shit man..." Richards grunted. Rico's entire throat was exposed. His eyes twitched, then glazed over. Richards turned to Mendez, still recovering from the shock of the entire incident that just flashed. "Go after that son of a bitch, and kill him."

"I can't leave you like this. You're-" Mendez was cut off.

"You're not letting Burnside run off alone. GO!" Richards growled. Mendez was about to exit the room, when Richards tossed Rico's SIG at the officer. "Take that. Switch to single-shot." He told the cop. Mendez nodded and ran after Burnside.

Burnside was running after the Doctor, who was turning corners left and right, attempting to head up the stairs. Burnside screamed towards him "Why?!?" Burnside watched the man climb up a stairwell, and fired three shots, one of which hit the kneecap of the doctor. He heard the man scream, but the doctor kept going. Burnside kept running after, as Mendez turned the corner Burnside had just left. "Burnside?" He called out. Burnside hadn't heard, already climbing the stairwell. Mendez stopped, checking all his sides, without noticing the patients who scattered past him.

Chapter Nine: SNAFU
"MacInnes!" Hiddleston called from the bottom of the elevator shaft. There was no response. It had happened very quickly. It was loud, all at once, then Hiddleston hit the bottom and it was quiet. Hiddleston waited. The wires had been cut, and he couldn't jump high enough to reach the elevator doors above. Instead, he shot open the vent for the elevator car, and hopped down inside. He hated to admit it, but he had given up. MacInnes bought him time, and there was no reason to-

"FUCKING SHIT!" MacInnes screamed, falling down the shaft and through the vent.

"Holy-" Hiddleston spoke, pressed against the car.

"Not now, aim up!" MacInnes screamed. Several patients began falling into the shaft, crawling into the vent. Hiddleston began firing his last rounds, and MacInnes lifted his Mossberg like a club, ready to swing at any who managed to survive. A single infected subject fell into the car, and MacInnes swung downward, the stock of his gun collapsing the skull of the infected, the brains squishing with the hit. Hiddleston kept firing rounds into every head that peeked inside, until MacInnes began prying the doors of the car open. Hiddleston emptied his mag, and reloaded his final clip into his MP5. "I'm out!"

"Almost done!" MacInnes called, the doors just open far enough for him to get his fingers inside. When he opened the door, he was tackled by two infected. They pushed him against the wall, and Hiddleston grabbed one by the neck, pulled him downward, put him in a headlock, and snapped his neck. MacInnes, grabbed by one infected, gripped his knife and slammed it into the side of the infected's head. The subject fell over onto the floor. "Let's go." MacInnes tells Hiddleston.

Hiddleston was never going to believe his lieutenant was dead, ever again. The man simply always beat the odds. "How many rounds do you have left?" The squad leader asked Hiddleston.

"I fired four in the new mag. Twenty-six left." Hiddleston answered. "I have one shell left." MacInnes informed the sergeant.

So...we're screwed. Hiddleston thinks to himself. The two move down across the hall. They made it to the second floor, where the laboratory they found the doctor in was. They attempted to open the doors, but they were blocked. The shattered windows were piled with objects and obstructions. The team had probably barricaded themselves. Hiddleston found the back entrance, and they moved inside the laboratory. There was a struggle, and Delisle's body was missing, only a puddle of blood remained where his body was. "Did they carry his body away?" Hiddleston asked. "Not unless he was embalmed... No blood trailing out. He couldn't have been dragged through either, there are no openings in the windows." MacInnes answered.

There was a commotion outside. Hiddleston nodded out of the room, and MacInnes moved back out through the exit. He peeked out the door, and sees the doctor run past. He draws his shotgun out and stops the doctor. "Don't Move!" He called. The doctor turned around. "You're alive." The doctor told them.

"Where's Burnside, the rest of the team?" Hiddleston asked.

"Rico is dead. So is every other fireteam." The doctor began stepping towards them, Scalpel behind his back.

"Rico? What about Richards? What about Burnside?" The sergeant continued.

"They're both alive..." The doctor trailed. "But Richards is badly injured." Hiddleston noticed the injury on the doctor's leg. The doctor is less than five feet away from them, right within distance, when Burnside called "GET AWAY FROM-" The doctor swung the scalpel towards MacInnes, who grabbed the arm and twists it, swinging the doctor over his shoulder and slamming his fist into the elbow, shattering the bone. The doctor screamed, dropped the scalpel, and Burnside fired a shot into the Doctor's shoulder. "That guy," Burnside exclaimed, "killed Rico!"

"You did what, doc?" MacInnes asked, twisting the broken arm. The doctor growled "Fuck you!" Burnside turned and noticed Delisle and several other infected walking towards them. "Boss!" He screamed. MacInnes dropped the doctor down and backed up, gun raised. Instead, the infected circled around the doctor, kneeling over him while he screamed. "We need him!" Hiddleston called. MacInnes simply watched. Burnside answered "No, Hiddleston. We don't. Officer Mendez told us how to get out of here. Fireteam Five's breach and clear entrance." MacInnes turned his back on the doctor, Burnside and Hiddleston simply watching the patients claw into the doctor's stomach and began grabbing his flesh. The man was still conscious, screaming, beggin MacInnes to shoot him. MacInnes turned around, and raised his shotgun towards the man. Burnside and Hiddleston stepped away. "We need to get back down there... we thought you guys were dead." Burnside tells him. Hiddleston is still frightened by the interaction going on. They're watching a man get eaten. "We can't just..."

"We can. And we are." Burnside tells him.

MacInnes aimed his shotgun down and slung it back over his shoulder. "PLEASE!" The doctor screamed.