Metal Mouse finished clearing the battlefield, his metal claws slick with blood as he dropped the final nucleus core into his mouth. Outside the Ironhowl X4, the world was quiet again—a silence that followed only after brutally oppressive slaughter. Raven leaned back in the driver’s seat, half of a rotisserie chicken still in her lap, Alara sat beside her, gnawing idly on another core. As Alara wondered, is this one strawberry, or is that blood as well she may never know.
With a sigh, Raven mentally ran the numbers. The sheer volume of nucleus cores now packed into Sanctuary meant Alara would be fully stocked for weeks or days. And that's good, because the world is about to change again. As human prey dwindles, zombies will begin to cannibalize each other. Natural selection in its purest, ugliest form. Level One variants will emerge from this evolution. And where there are human zombies, soon there will be mutated plants then animals and finally sea life. The end of winter is close. This means that once the snow thaws, more wildlife will wake up, more infected beasts will emerge.
Raven's eyes narrowed, calculating further. If she wants to preserve even a sliver of the old world, the time to act is now. Her mind jumped to the nearby zoo. The Central Park Zoo, home to dozens of rare animals, many likely abandoned but still alive. It was a long shot, but maybe some of them could be saved. Maybe Sanctuary could be more than just a a refuge it could be an arc for humanity following along with Raven wherever her journey may take her.
Metal Mouse was recalled into the system space with a thought. The two drones followed, one after the other. The Ironhowl's engine turned on as she turned the ignition switch. With Alara settled quietly in the passenger seat, they drove forward into the car blocked streets of New York.
Raven took the long route, deliberately plowing through every rusted car and twisted car wreck in her way. The Ironhowl X4 hardly noticed the resistance. Vehicles collapsed as they were shoved off curbs and into crumbling storefronts, the way ahead was cleared one brutal impact at a time. In a few days, Momma Jean’s group would reach the NYS Civil Defense Communications Center Bunker. Raven had no doubt. Gas and cars were still abundant. The real danger was trust, not supplies, at least not yet.
Raven tightened her grip on the wheel. The Red Blood Raiders. They were still out there, but not for long. She had something special in store for Adam Carter. Something that would make her infamous among the survivor bases. His end would be legendary.
But after Carter, after the Raiders, will come something more challenging.
The lab.
Raven blinked, her vision hardening. That secret lab was where her Technomancer powers first awakened in her last life. Before that, she only had her plant affinity. That lab took everything from her. Injecting her with poisons. Draining enough blood to fill a lake. They took body parts like they were free.
They had called it research for the benefit of mankind. She was to be the cure to the virus but only for the elite few still alive, not the common people. This is something Raven always knew.
But Raven never screamed. Never begged for mercy. While they wrote her off as broken, she watched them. She learned their poisons and techniques, their failures, their data—she absorbed it all. And when her Technomancer ability finally came, she hacked to door to her cell and walked out of that lab, never looking back.
And now she wondered: without her there to dissect, what are they doing? Who were they cutting open now? Who had taken her place on that operating table?
Raven didn't shiver, but she felt a pang of fear settle in her chest. The real question is not what the lab is doing but who is behind them.
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