The campus looked untouched, like it had sat unused throughout the centuries. That might really have been true, but Serenitee and Wilfrend knew to be cautious.
"I know this is a cliche, but isn't it too quiet here?" Serenitee said, looking at the wide open spaces between the low stone buildings.
"This place has a weird vibe, I get what you're saying," Rom said, a smaller lupine male who carried the biggest gun. It was a cross between an auto firing photon rifle and a bomb launcher.
"Doesn't change what we have to do. Keep your eyes moving and stay in formation," Wilfrend said, punctuating his statement by heading towards the nearest building.
"Ok, let's figure out what that building is, or used to be, so we can get our bearings on this old map," said Serenitee. She followed after the pack leader, and the other 5 Lupines followed her.
When they all caught up to Wilfrend, he casually motioned them over around the corner. When they arrived, he directed them into the deeper shadows of the entryway. "We are being watched. I don't know from where yet, but something is stalking us. We need to be at full alert." He pulled Serenitee closer. "Ok, figure out which building we are heading too, quickly. I don't think it is a coincidence that this place has been left unpillaged for so long."
"Are you saying there is some danger here, and I was set up?" The thought hadn't occurred to her when she scored this bounty and the map to go with it. Now, faced with something that scared the Lupine leader this much, she wondered at how easy this deal was. 'Shit. Are we the stalking horse for another recovery crew, or even a military squad? Will they come and take out whatever is here after it is tired from chewing our bones?' she thought.
"It doesn't matter. We just need to avoid whatever it is, and find the fucking lab. Ok?"
"Ok," she agreed.
The lupines set up a perimeter while she broke out the map. Even though nothing had changed, now she noticed the oppressive feeling Wilfrend picked up on. Like they had walked into the lair of a predator.
"It's on the other side of the campus, in a round building close to a clock tower. This place isn't that big, maybe a 20 minute walk? If we double time it, we'll be fast."
"You heard her, double time," Wilfrend said.
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The campus was surprisingly clear of all the trees, foliage and underbrush that had overtaken the city. They thought this was a good thing at first.
"It's like this area has been maintained, or something," Rom huffed out while they jogged around another building.
"Yes, and now I realize how much more cover we had in the city forest. Keep moving guys," Wilfrend said, scanning around. 'Was that movement on top of that building to the East?' he thought. It wasn't the first hints he'd seen, but they had to keep moving. Out in the open wasn't very defensible.
"I think that is it, the building ahead and to the left," Serenitee called out, excited. '200 more metres, and we'll be in striking distance of the modern holy grail.' She ran faster. The fear she felt has been building, and relief was in sight. The lupines were edited for strength and speed, but elfin edits were deeper than the cosmetic too. She was much lighter than she looked, and her muscle fibers had an increased power output for their size. She was edited like a souped up track car.
"Stay in formation," Wilfrend yelled.
Serenitee easily pulled ahead of the running lupines though. Her increased pace made them all start to sprint to keep up, but the gap only widened. Until she suddenly stopped.
As she passed a dry fountain surrounded by rubble, she saw the entrance to the biologics building clearly for the first time. The doors were blocked but boulders and large pieces of rubble. 'Was this building hit by a blast or earthquake?' Her mind was trying to catch up, because the rest of the buildings were very weathered, but remarkably well preserved. This was the most damage she'd seen.
"The building has been sealed deliberately," Rem said, a little breathlessly as he caught up with Serenitee.
"What do you mean?"
"Sure, a partial collapse could block the entry. Except the walls are intact, and no structural fault would make boulders appear at the door, right?"
"Shit," she said. The rest of the team caught up. Wilfrend didn't look happy.
"I think it is fair to say that we have run right into their trap," said Wilfrend.
"They?" asked Serenitee. She turned, reluctantly, away from the entryway. So close to her goal. "Oh, you mean them."
Coming towards them, from every direction it seemed, were large hairy creatures. They scaled down from the roofs and walls of the nearby buildings, came out of side passages, and some brazenly just shuffle ran down the same path they had just traversed.
"Shit," Rom said. The whole crew looked uneasy, but not afraid.
The creatures approached on all fours, but, now that they were closer, Serenitee could tell that they were simian and were using their hands to go faster. "What do we do?"
"Our backs are to the wall, literally. I count nearly a hundred, and they have covered all the routes we could use to escape. Smart bastards." Wilfrend said. Then he smiled. "Damn dirty apes. Time to show them how much more evolved we are." Then he raised his phased photon rifle to his shoulder and fired five times, without pausing. Five holes appeared in the foreheads of the closest ape creatures and they fell forward in heaps. The creatures behind them jumped over them like they were just logs in their way.
"Open fire guys, lets thin the herd before they get close. They are big, and I don't want to find out how strong they are if I don't have to."
The quiet hum of phase modulated weapons filled the entrance of the biologics research building. The creatures fell easily, but they were getting closer, and at least half were still alive.
"Guys, guys," Serenitee said loudly. They didn't pause in their firing, the creatures were getting closer, and they could see the claws and big teeth they had all too clearly.
"What is it?" Wilfrend said, his eyes moving from target to target, but not to Serenitee.
"Above us. There is a different kind on the roof."
"Shit," was the last thing one of the lupines said, Ger, she thought, before the gorilla looking beast landed on him. He was crushed, and blood sprayed like a water balloon hitting the ground.
"Fuck," Rem screamed.
"Everyone against the wall," Wilfrend said, turning and running the few metres to the wall near the rubble covered doors. The rubble and boulders provided some cover, while the entry way itself was recessed a few feet into the wall of the building, providing decent cover from an attack from above.
Serenitee, Rem, Rom and Wilfrend made it to the wall first and turned back to face what was coming. They turned in time to see another of the large creatures land on Tag, killing him instantly. Ban was running, when the first gorilla monster casually reached out and grabbed him. The beast was big enough that its hand easily encircled Ban's bicep.
"Shoot, shoot,"Wilfrend screamed. Everyone targeted the beast holding Ban. The photon shots hit, but seemed to have no effect. The shots didn't stop it from grabbing Ban with its other hand and ripping his arm off.
Ban's scream was cut abruptly short when the gorilla beast slammed his head into the broken concrete of the entryway. Brain matter and blood shot out like it had exploded.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Rom chanted, his eyes wide, his finger repeatedly pressing the trigger. These beasts didn't even seem to notice the same power level that had killed so many of the smaller creatures. He realized the blasts were damaging them, he could that they had singed fur and a few dark spots oozing blood now. 'This would blast a hole right through me, and these guys are reacting like we are using bb guns,' he thought. "Boss, these guns aren't big enough for those bastards. What do we do?"
The beasts looked a little like gorillas that had gotten into weight lifting, and were about 1.5 times bigger than normal. Their fur was black, but now they could see that they had dark blue horns on their foreheads, and sharp looking ridges on their forearms that were the same colour. Under the hair of their chest, it seemed the same dark bone like substance covered them, like armour.
"This way," Rem said, motioning from behind one of the large boulders. He then provided covering fire, aiming at the heads of the beasts. They turned their heads away, and ducked down a little. It didn't fatally injure them, but they didn't like it either. Serenitee, Wilfrend and Rom ran into the small space behind the boulder.
"Don't stop, let's go," Wilfrend directed, as he laid down and army crawled into the small break in the wall, leading inside the Biologics Study building.