Re: quicklog: cat, matt, steve
[This wasn't war. It wasn't the muddy chaos of a battlefield, men dying with their heads exploding next to you—a mouth you'd just heard words come out of suddenly slack-jawed, then gone. It wasn't even quite like a POW camp, though the walls close and the bodies thicker could make it seem that way. Because here, there were no sides—no good guys or bad guys. It was people dying, then coming back as something worse, light trickling along the faultlines of veins, like someone had run Christmas lights through circulatory systems—but the color was a blue Steve associated with serious tech, a freon blue that whited at the edges with stark illumination. It wasn't clean-cornered or sleek now though, no, because it came embedded in flesh like pustules close to bursting and pus bulging, wanting out. It happened so quickly, it was difficult to figure out what was going on. It was an easier uniform, sure, than camo amid variegated green. The lumbering, hissing creatures were obvious—but, they were people. Steve couldn't tell if they only changed after death or not, and he wasn't so certain killing them outright was the right thing to do—after all, what if these changes could be reversed.
But, there was no time for a debate on ethics. He could only do what he thought was best in the moment and hope it held, like some tension wire too taut, too burdened.—Some of those who changed vocalized, screams and cries of agony or fear or sorrow, while others spoke. They said words, as if they were carrying on a conversation somewhere in frazzled, short-circuited brain. Others still just stuck to needle like dust in a groove, syllables disjointed, repeated.—Steve did his best to force them into rooms where no one else was. He'd piledrive them with the door of that shipping container—and worked pretty good, as long as he wasn't surrounded on all sides. He'd managed to close up a second room, blue, loose-boned hands reaching scabbing for his own as he slammed the door closed, just as Cat fizzled into static in his ear.
The labs were vast in a way he hadn't expected, though the space wasn't large. It was just stacked, and without elevators, and with only fire drill guides as any study of the layout, it was slow going. It probably didn't help that he stopped to assist pockets of those who had barricaded themselves in rooms.—By the time he finally reached the control room (marked cryptically on the maps), his clothing was in tatters, and Steve was remembering how nice it was to have a uniform. Fabric that didn't tear, that was easy to move in. Because he was in his jacket and jeans, and both were spattered high with blood, black oil, he didn't know what. Still, though there was sweat gleaming on his cheeks and forehead, sticking his shirt to his chest, his energy was high. If he let himself think about it, he might be forced to admit he almost missed this. Not the death, no. But, the adrenaline, the choreography, the action, the song of blood through veins. He missed the fight.
The door he'd co-opted as a poor man's shield was large, unwieldy, and dented now, dinged in the front. It was marked up with gore, and was nearly taller than the man carrying it, but it worked. It worked, so Steve kept it, and he had it raised as he came up the bottleneck of the hallway to the control room, eyes on the crouching figure of a man before the door. He clocked the guns quickly, instinctively, as well as the lighter, and his brain attempted to count bullets left without any decision to do so on his part. This was an easy skin to slip back into, he found.—So of course he saw the arm. He didn't comment on it. He just shored up behind the other man. He had his shield lifted before the gun could level, but he didn't strike.] Is she in there? [He knew the answer.] Let me lead. I can cover us.