* * *

Watching the vids, Dwayne slowly rubbed his chin, concentrating on the feed from Maria’s helmet. She had muted her feed, and Omondi’s had gone dark unexpectedly. Something was going on and he didn’t like it.

“Vanguard Martinez, what is the status of the Chief Defender? I have lost his feed,” Dwayne said curtly.

Her feed reopened, and she answered, “He has advanced in front of the squad. There appears to be an Anomaly outside the main entrance.”

She wasn’t answering his question directly.

“He cut it off on his end,” Lindsey said, answering his earlier question.

Dr. Curran drew closer to Dwayne’s station again. Concern and fear played over her features, deepening the furrow between her eyebrows and the lines around her mouth.

“Vanguard Martinez, I need for you to advance so I can see the Chief Defender,” Dwayne instructed.

“Yes, sir,” came the answer.

The camera on Maria’s helmet continued to transmit a clear signal as she appeared to crawl toward an open window. He could hear her breathing and he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The virus was definitely altering her, and he wondered what secrets the SWD was keeping about the virus from the Constabulary.

Gradually, the image of Chief Defender Omondi came into view. He stood just outside of one of the broken windows. Standing before him was a soldier in Constabulary armor that was dripping with blood and rain. The man’s close-cropped wiry, curly hair glistened with droplets of water as the sun crept out from behind the dissipating storm clouds.

“Find out who that is,” Dwayne ordered and the young man at the work station nearby immediately began scanning the databases.

“I know who it is,” Maria’s trembling voice said. “It’s my father.”

Her feed went dark.

* * *

Maria could barely believe what her eyes were telling her, but she knew the face of her father too well to deny the truth. Vanguard Mariano Martinez stood face to face with Chief Defender Omondi. He looked exactly how she remembered him. Dark curly hair, wide shoulders, tall frame, and skin a shade or two darker than her own. But his dark eyes were gone. In their place were gleaming red eyes and the warmth of his smile was replaced with cold cruelty.

“Who are you?” the Chief Defender asked.

“Vanguard Mariano Martinez of the Constabulary,” he answered.

Out of the gray, misty rain appeared more figures. Two more people in Constabulary uniforms stepped into view. They, too, had the disturbing red eyes. One was a woman, the other a man. Both were smeared in blood. What was keenly unsettling about them was that, unlike the Inferi Scourge and the Anomalies, their faces were not vacant of thought. Their disturbing red eyes were obviously appraising Omondi.

“Special Sergeant Amber Alkan, Special Constable Gareth Reese and I are the only survivors of the fourth Inferi Boon mission,” Mariano said.

“What happened to the first three missions?” Omondi asked, his demeanor calm, but his voice demanding.

Mariano smirked and glanced at his two companions. “Should I tell him?”

“He’s on his way to joining us,” the woman responded.

Her pale skin looked ghastly beneath the layer of blood and bits of flesh that was bit by bit sluicing away with the rain. Her brown hair was tucked away from her blood-smeared face. She wore a beret with a Constabulary emblem on it. The man standing behind her was as dark as night, tall, and leanly built.

“The first mission was a failure. The Inferi Boon turned Scourge within forty-eight hours. The SWD barely contained them from starting a new outbreak. The second mission was more successful. The squad went through training and were sent into the sewers to clear out some of the Scrags that had found their way into the system through a faulty hatch. They never returned. They turned into Scourge and were destroyed later by the third mission. They cleared out the sewers and exited through the hydroelectric plant. That mission cleared out a good portion of this area before turning Scourge. The fourth mission—us—we were the most successful. We never turned Scourge. But we became something much more dangerous.”

“You’re Anomalies. Cannibals. Feeding off of the dead and living.” Omondi’s words were tight and hard.

“Anomalies?” Mariano laughed. “I like that. We call the ones we turned Aberrations.”

As Maria watched, more mutated Scourge crept out from hiding places. These Aberrations, as her father called them, also wore Constabulary uniforms, and Maria recognized a few among them, including her former commanding officer, Ren Stillson. They looked closer to the Scourge with their murky eyes and swift, jerky motions, but there was something intelligent and desperate in their gaze. There were over fifty of them.

“You created these others?” Omondi scrutinized the bloodied creatures standing at a distance. Though the Aberrations didn’t make any hostile movements, Maria was unnerved by their presence. They were obviously of the same ilk as the mutated Scourge they had fought in the basement.

“We hunger. The hunger is madness. It drives us. At first we tried to assuage it with the food we salvaged from the farms, but it was never enough. Then we...” Mariano faltered, a spark of his humanity showing for a moment. It made Maria’s heart ache for him. “One of us went mad and bit one of the Scrags. The flesh...it...helped with the pain of the hunger. For a while. When the Constabulary tried to expand the perimeter, a few of us were close enough to attack, bite, and feed. Our victims rose as Aberrations. They are simple-minded creatures, but they do as we tell them. They know if they help us, we can get back into the city and feed.”

“We will not help you,” Omondi said in a dangerous voice. “We came out here to save the city, not destroy it.”

“You’re going to be what we are! Soon the hunger will be so great, the pain of it so overwhelming, you will do anything to placate it!”

The madness in his eyes and voice were terrifying. Mariano wouldn’t be reasoned with. That was painfully obvious. The loving father she once adored was gone. He had been replaced with a cold, calculating creature.

Maria shifted her weight, moving into a better position to fire if required. Against Omondi’s orders, she signaled the squad to move into an offensive position.

“So you’re going to invade the city you swore to protect and kill its people?” Omondi asked incredulously.

“We will make the SWD cure us! We will kill until they realize that to survive they must cure us!” Mariano shouted. “We gave our lives to save the city and it abandoned us!”

“We’re soldiers of the Constabulary. It’s our honor to give our lives in service to protect the last of humanity. It’s a sacred duty,” Omondi growled out.

“We’re your future! We’re what you will become! Soon you’ll be tearing into flesh just to slake the pain in your gut and the madness in your mind!” Mariano took a dangerous step toward Omondi, his body coiled as if to strike. Pointing an accusing finger at the Chief Defender, Mariano said, “Do not act the innocent! You came looking for us! You knew we were here all along! Did you tell your people? Did you warn them of what they’ll become?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Maria could see the uneasy movements of the squad. Holm turned her head to look at Denman, then at Maria, her eyes questioning.

“There’s no happy ending for us! There is no cure for the Inferi Boon Virus. Or the Inferi Scourge Virus. They lied to all of us! We came out here to fight their war and we killed for them until the hunger was shredding us. We were going mad with the agony.” Mariano pointed at himself. “I listened to my commanding officer beg the SWD for med-pods. He begged them to come get us. We were in unbearable agony, immobilized, desperate. They refused us. Our Med-Specialist reported our condition faithfully to the SWD, recommending immediate evacuation before we worsened. They refused. And when they realized we had become what they fear most, they stopped answering us. They sent a virus to our wristlets, deactivating them. They thought we would black out and cease to be their concern. But we didn’t. We stayed awake, hungry, and mad.”

“So you’re the reason why they finally shut down the subways.” Omondi slightly moved his weight to one side, a casual move, but one that placed his hand closer to his weapon.

“When there were more of us, we were able to breach the system a few times. Our last incursion was a few months ago. We had collected the weapons left behind when the mission to expand the perimeter failed. We salvaged what we could from the armor and equipment left behind. We failed and lost many of our…Anomalies. It’s difficult to...” Mariano wavered on his feet slightly. “It’s difficult to think when the hunger is so intense. Only living flesh makes it go away entirely. The flesh of the Scourge only takes the edge off of it. ”

“You killed Inferi Boon!” Omondi’s voice was a sharp bark of anger.

“We hunger!” Mariano bared his teeth.

Maria felt tears in her eyes. This was the man who had meant so much to her, altered, changed, and monstrous.

“Did you eat each other? Did you attack each other?”