• The science behind the previously unheard of and wide-spreading infection, deemed by the medical community as DX-10 or “STARV” virus, is to this day a mystery. After the battles in the northern hemisphere and our own western coastal regions many specimen were collected for study by Imperial specialist haz-mat teams. Both living and deceased samples were acquired and studied by the top minds within the Empire. The only conclusions that could be drawn after extensive and prolonged durations of research concluded that whatever was the root source of the inherent mutation stemmed created effects similar to extreme malnutrition, linked to the absence of some unknown variable not present in Imperial archives. Deemed a non-contagion to humans, DX-10 was a rapidly spreading issue throughout the handful of non-human races that still inhabit the world. I will continue my research in hopes of establishing more data where our records are lacking.

    -Medical Journal of DR Joanna Foss,
    Senior Biochemist of Genesis Labs



    Chapter Twenty-Two

    The screen came to life, black at first, flashing a single small white line showing where the text would be entered. It was a secure communications line, terminal to terminal. Fingers pressed the keys on the other end, and the words appeared simultaneously on the receiving end. I HAVE FOUND HIM. That was the news they had been waiting for. Weeks had passed since one of their most prized and upcoming agents had gone rouge, chasing after an A list terrorist without authorization. Weeks since they had lost the trail of them both.
    DOES HE KNOW? Was the response typed into the home console, the question of Special Task Force General Gordon H. Flagstaff, commander and overseer of all foreign conflicts. When Cross took matters into his own hands, pursuing his mark out of the Empire, the file had been placed on his desk. The same day a black ops agent was dispatched to track and trail Cross. More words came onto the screen, each white letter typing itself out in the stop-go rhythm of human typing.
    NO. HE HAS LOST THE TARGET. So there it was. Cross has let the enemy slip away, though the three star General knew that it was likely due to no shortcoming on Benjamin Cross’ part. The young man was in all ways the embodiment of a good agent, always completing the mission no matter what. Where other upper echelon officers would seek to crucify Cross for his unorthodox methods, Gordon Flagstaff found him simply remarkable. The box of files on his desk was a testament to the man’s accomplishment in his relatively short time in the direct service of the Empire’s elite core.
    The General had to issue his orders, but knew that given an option he would in a heartbeat have tried to bring Cross back, to save the man the persecution brought down by those who’s influence far outweighed his own. His fingers typed slowly, regretfully. ELIMINATE PRIMARY TARGET. It was a death sentence and he knew it. Had Cross not lost his own target the General knew he might have been able to lobby for more time. But now he knew he had nothing with which to offer them. The word of the law would be brought down hard, and there was nothing he could do to save what would not doubt have become one of the Emperor’s finest.
    The last transmission came quickly in response to the orders given. The agent was a glorified assassin, given writ over human life by the orders and dictates of the greater minds of the Empire. Flagstaff didn’t know his name, nor did he want to. In this he knew he would loose some sleep. In one word the agent confirmed soon coming death of Benjamin Cross. AFFIRMATIVE.


    Cross took out his sidearm, and shot the small portable text console with a bullet straight through the screen. His fingers had been the ones that had typed to the General, though he was certain there was no one who would ever know. The agent who had formerly owned the long-range communication equipment lay off to the side, a mangled pile of mostly eaten body parts. There was little left of the black ops agent to even begin to try to discern an identity.
    Last night he had made camp on the roof of an abandoned gas station, somewhere those monsters couldn’t reach him. Their half dead moans had kept him up most of the night. It was just around dawn when he had heard the single piercing scream from inside the building below him. When the sun had risen he had went down to investigate, killing a handful of the yellow-skinned creatures in the process. He had assumed that the Empire would send someone after him, and he had found the body locked in a room that had once been a storage closet. The window had been broken in, and Cross knew that’s where they had come in from.
    He managed to salvage the agent’s ammunition, and some other supplies he was in need of. Thankfully the station had gas still in it, and Cross had been able to fill up his bike and secure a spare gas can. He had been ordered killed by the people he once served, and Cross knew there was no going back now. Not unless he had something to bargain with. He looked over to one of the fetid heaps that had been a person some time ago but was now nothing more than a ravenous beast. They still didn’t know the extent of it all, or the agent sent to kill him would have been better prepared.
    He bent down, and used a broom handle to turn over the body, holding his sleeve against his mouth and nose to diffuse the smell. The thing reeked like something that had been dead for weeks. It had been an orc once, one from the northern rim. The wide shoulders and tusked lower jaw were easy giveaways. But the look of starvation and decay had taken hold some time ago. The orcs green skin had become a yellow-grey hue, the eyes sunken back into the skull now nothing more than small black marbles. Anyone who found a body like this would say without a doubt that this poor b*****d had died weeks ago. But had that been the case Cross wouldn’t have had to put three bullets between it’s eyes last night to keep it from tearing him apart.
    Cross lifted the hand, examining the tight skin, pulled back from the fingernails to give an appearance of claws. The muscles had began to break down, leaving bony protrusions pushing against the skin near the joints. This thing shouldn’t have been moving let alone attacking him like he was some sort of meal. The things he had killed seemed to be able to shrug off non-lethal pain. Shooting one in an arm or leg rarely did anything but slow it down if one as lucky.
    Cross had run some test with lone ones or small groups he had encountered, trying to find weaknesses and vulnerabilities. He found their sight and sense of smell to be poor, which was good, though their hearing and endurance were far above normal levels. They could keep up their slow run pace indefinitely and he was glad he still had his bike in good working order, less he long ago would have given in to exhaustion and been overtaken. They were attracted to sounds, and he had used that to his advantage to lead them away from where he had stayed several times.
    Cross left the grotesque sight behind, and went outside where his bike was waiting for him. As he had expected, a small group of the freaks was already crossing the street and heading for him. The sound of the shot had no doubt carried for some distance and any more of them in the area would be here in short order. He mounted up his bike and kicked off, speeding away down the road heading north. There was no use heading to Stone Tomb, he knew. This infection or whatever it was spread worse than anything he had ever seen or heard about before. Stone Tomb was one of the biggest cities in the north and Benjamin didn’t want to end up in a position like the one he had been in when he had first encountered these… zombies.
    The thought of those cheesy movies about the walking dead made him smile. They were suppose to be frail, lumbering things. But giving them a name, zombie, seemed to help Ben think of them as an enemy a lot easier. It was a word he could visualize. It was a concept he could accept. He didn’t know where to go, but he knew he had to keep moving, so north it was. The forests would be less densely populated, and perhaps there he would be able to take some time and really think on what his next move should be. The world was chaos now, and it was only matter of time before someone lit this giant tinderbox.
    At least on the road things were quiet enough. He passed wrecks of all kinds, keeping a careful eye out for anything that might come out of the shadows after hearing his bike. He had seen macabre scenes, bodies and parts of bodies, sprawled across the road. A few times there had been some zombies still eating the remains, but he had managed off road long enough to avert them.
    By the time his tank was reading E the road signs and exit ramps were few and far between. The trees had grown tall, reaching well above most buildings, their canopy all but blocking most of the direct sunlight. Driving through such dense forest he was on edge and more than happy there was a clear road to follow. He knew it would only be a matter of hours off road and he would be hopelessly lost, assuming he lasted that long. Zombies aside, there were all manner of things in places like this that would likely want to make a meal of him.
    In the years past the Empire had set in motion a crusade of sorts to eradicate all manner of dangerous beasts and monsters from Halmahera. In the darkest of places the had found insects the size of elephants, reptiles larger than dinosaurs. They had brought back the corpses of humanoids that had not been seen my human eyes in centuries. Missiles had been fired into the never ending cavern ways below the Serpent Mountains, closing forever any hope of entry or escape. He had been a young boy when the last of the regions of the Empire had been cleansed, and he remembered going to the museum with his father, pointing at the skeleton of those gigantic monsters with wide eyed awe.
    Now those visions came to him as a warning to take extra caution. This was a wild land, untouched by the hand of the Empire, left to grow and fester unchecked for longer than written history existed. In the time before the Kingdom of Man, these forests had been the homeland of the Elven Lords. That was long ago, before they had left the realms of man for untold plains, before they had become scattered nomads and recluse hermits. This was a land of danger all about.