Lucas looked at me nervously. “Since the Director died, it’s mostly been the Emergency Committee running things,” he said. “There’s not a lot of management left, and pretty much everybody works for someone on the committee.”

  “Who’s on the committee?” I asked.

  “Doctors Carmichael, Huang, Archer, Wexler and, um… Vargas. And Doctor Archer. He’s my boss.”

  “All doctors?” I asked. “Who keeps this place running?”

  “It pretty much runs itself,” Lucas replied. “There are some maintenance folks, but they keep to themselves, pretty much. The bunker is mostly self-sufficient.”

  “Is it?” I wondered. “Where do you get your food?”

  “From stores,” he admitted. “There’s still lots, but it’s getting lower.”

  “What’s the plan to get more?”

  “It’s—the current situation is supposed to be temporary. We can hold out for another year at least. And… there is a plan if it looks to go on for longer than that.”

  “What is it?”

  Lucas grimace. “I don’t know,” he said. “No one outside of the committee knows. There’s a rumour it involves kicking out the less essential staff members to save on supplies.”

  “To die, you mean. You think they’d do that?”

  “No… but I was glad when you guys came in and I had to do quarantine duties,” he said. “No one wants to be unneeded right now.”

  I frowned and looked over to Borys. “I’m not hearing a win condition,” I confessed.

  “I don’t either,” he agreed.

  “Um, what’s that?” Lucas asked. I ignored him. Borys glanced at him before continuing.

  “We could just have to defeat the people in charge,” Borys said. “Evil corporation, developing the virus. It has the right feel.”

  “Yeah… but it sound’s weak,” I mused. “They’ve got the zombie soldiers so they make a strong adversary, but they’re going to be Threat 10 like all the other humans here. Hardly a final boss.”

  I turned back to Lucas. “You guys don’t have a super-sized version of the zombie soldiers tucked away somewhere, do you?”

  “Uh, not as far as I know. What—what was that you said about defeating the Committee? They’re not bad guys, they’re helping defeat the virus!”

  “Are they, though?” I asked.

  “I know they don’t all sound like they want to help,” Lucas admitted. “Some of them are a bit cold. But they got into this field to help people! You’re supposed to have brought in this cure, how are they supposed to distribute it when you’ve… done whatever you’re going to do?”

  He looked at me defiantly, which was quite impressive since I’d just got done [Intimidating] him. I raised an eyebrow. Maybe it was plot-based.

  “The cure, huh?” I mused. “Maybe that’s the play.”

  I looked over the rag-tag group of survivors. “Any of you want to volunteer for testing?”

  “Why us?” Travis asked immediately.

  “Well, not you,” I shot back. “It needs to be someone who contracted the virus, which eliminates you, and us. It needs to be someone like…” I looked at Tobias.

  “I’m happy to help, as long as the means aren’t too extreme,” he said cautiously. “What kind of tests are we talking about?”

  “Ju—just blood tests?” Lucas said. “To begin with, I don’t know what Dr Archer is going to call for next.”

  “You don’t need to have your subject sedated and strapped to a gurney for a blood test, do you?” I said.

  “Oh, no. We just—we were worried about the subjects turning while we were taking the blood,” Lucas said.

  “Hmm. Well, why don’t you take some samples now, and we can see about getting them tested,” I said.

  “I mean, I can,” Lucas said, edging over towards one of the equipment trolleys. “That’s what I’m here for. I just don’t think Dr Archer is going to be in the mood to do tests after you trashed all her security zombies.”

  “That’s fair,” I said. “But I’m pretty good at negotiating.”

  Lucas took a few samples of Tobias’s blood and carefully labelled the tubes, before placing them in a small tray. Then he glanced at us and rummaged through the cupboards. He produced a small, sturdy box, that he packed with cotton wool and stashed the samples in.

  “Here,” he said, holding it out to me.”

  “You keep it,” I told him. “You’re coming with us, after all.”

  He shied back. “I don’t want to die!” he declared. “The committee is going to send everything after you. Even if they wanted to save my life, I’d die in the crossfire!”

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  “Oh ye of little faith,” I said. “One of these screens can talk to your boss, right?”

  Lucas sighed and packed the box away in his lab coat’s pocket. “Right,” he said.

  He walked over and started pushing buttons. It wasn’t long before a face came up on the screen.

  “Dr Felix Archer, my boss,” Lucas said. “Doctor, these are the—”

  “I’ve seen the tapes,” the man said. “These are the anarchists who have taken you hostage.”

  “I’m more of a Democratic Socialist, myself,” I said idly. “We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot.”

  Dr Archer glared at me.

  “There will be no negotiations with terrorists,” he said. “We have shut down the elevators and sealed the exits. You cannot continue any further into this facility and you will be killed if you try.”

  “You were the ones who attacked us,” I pointed out. “We’ve still got that cure you were interested in, we’re just not interested in being gassed and vivisected. Can’t we come to some sort of compromise?”

  “Never!”

  “Is there someone else I can talk to? I’d like to speak with a manager.”

  “No.” Dr Archer cut the connection.

  “That… didn’t work?” Felicia asked.

  “It seems that Skills don’t work over a Zoom call,” I said. “We’ll just have to get up close and personal.”

  “But… you’re not going to be able to do that,” Lucas said. “All the doors have been sealed.”

  “They sure did,” I said. “But for some strange reason, they decided to make all their doors out of steel. Cloridan?”

  “Got it, boss,” Cloridan said, moving over to the elevator.

  “Oh, elevator doors aren’t normally secure,” I said. “You should be able to just pry them apart.”

  Cloridan looked at me doubtfully but plunged his darksteel dagger straight into one side of the doors. Using that as a handle, he easily shoved the doors open, revealing a dark shaft.

  “These are supposed to have emergency lights,” I grumbled. I took care of it with a [Light] spell. Cloridan made to jump down, but I stopped him.

  “It might not be far,” I said, “But the ceiling might not take the impact, and there might be a soldier in there. Take the ladder.”

  Looking in, I quickly spotted the rungs of the emergency ladder, attached to the shaft wall. Cloridan shrugged and started climbing down. He quickly discovered the hatch and disposed of the lock with a quick slash of his dagger.

  “It’s clear!” he called up. He started stabbing at the doors, with the intention of opening a peephole.

  I looked over at the survivors. “Who is fine with staying here until we figure out what we’re doing?” I asked.

  “Hell if I am!” Travis declared. “This place is creepy, reminds me of a morgue.”

  The rest of the group concurred. Or so I assumed from the muttered “Yeah”s and “I guess”es that I heard. Lukas put his hand up.

  “I’m fine with staying here,” he said.

  “Nope, you’re our local guide,” I said. “You get to ride in the front seat!”

  He didn’t look happy at being granted this privilege.

  I had Felicia and Kyle gather up our passengers, organising them to follow us at a slight distance. We did have to worry about being flanked, but most of the danger would be at the front end of our convoy. Though, if what I had in mind worked out, it wouldn’t be too dangerous.

  Cloridan had carved out his spyhole, so I climbed down to take a look.

  Aw yeah, that’s just about perfect.

  It looked like the lift opened out into a short corridor with a security door at the far end. Standing before the security door were two cyber-zombies, armed with…

  Finally, we’re breaking out the good guns.

  Now to see if the flaw I thought I’d spotted worked. I cast [Phantom World] on both of the zombies. It took hold.

  [Phantom World] was both the strongest and the weakest illusion spell I had. Most of my spells took up a specified volume, and couldn’t depict anything larger than that. [Phantom World] took over the entire sensorium of a single person. There was no limit to what I could make them see, but there was one big limitation. If the target doubted what they were seeing, the spell ended.

  All my other spells stayed around, no matter what the target believed. You could walk through a [Static Image] spell, but the image would stay until I cancelled it. Not [Phantom World].

  Here’s the thing though. Zombie’s can’t doubt. I wasn’t sure if they could even see the illusion, since they seemed to operate on some kind of lifesense. The people controlling the zombies, though, were using regular cameras to see by. They could see the illusion. They could doubt what they were seeing, too, but they weren’t the target.

  To start with, all I did was rotate what the zombie saw. About forty-five degrees off from true. It took a moment to work, but both zombies suddenly turned to correct what they were seeing. It took three small stomps for them to change position, and then they stood still.

  I rotated another forty-five degrees. Three stomps. Now they were facing each other. Now I made a real change. I had the elevator door open and showed them an image of Cloridan charging them. I could have used the real thing here, but I didn’t want to put him in danger.

  The cybernetic control interface was nice and smooth. As one, the zombies brought their weapons to bear and fired on full auto. Fake Cloridan didn’t stand a chance. He jumped up, but they kept their weapons trained on him. Neither the recoil of the heavy assault rifles nor the impact of the slugs in their torsos so much as spoiled their aim. They only stopped when their heads exploded.

  “Sounds like it worked,” Cloridan said as the sound of machine gun fire died down. He grunted as he levered the elevator doors open.

  “Hold up,” I said. I stuck my head out and glanced up at what had been my blind spot. No camera. They probably had no idea what happened then.

  “All clear. Let’s go.”

  We approached the smoking corpses cautiously. Cloridan gathered up the guns and ammunition, while I examined the door. From what Lucas had told me, this had been a bio-security checkpoint, hastily reconfigured to stop larger nasties. That didn’t explain why it didn’t have cameras, though.

  In fact, there was a stubby mount where a camera would go, but nothing was attached. Did that mean…

  “That’s some scary attention to detail,” I said.

  “Hmm?” Cloridan asked while reloading the HK.

  I pointed at the camera mounts. “They repurposed their security cameras, turned them into zombie eyes,” I said.

  At some point, I’d explained the basics of cameras to Cloridan. He needed to know, what with all the sneaking around he did. Now he shrugged.

  “It doesn’t matter much,” he said. “If they were there, you could always stick a [Static Image] in front of them.

  “I suppose,” I agreed. “It’s just more fun for me when they put them on zombies.”

  “Don’t complain, then,” he admonished me. Freshly armed, he turned his attention to the door.

  “This one slides like the elevator doors,” I said, “But it will be locked.”

  “No key?” Cloridan asked, looking back at the zombie guard.

  “Zombies couldn’t use one,” I said, not knowing if that was true. They’d mastered automatic weapons. “I think it’s controlled remotely.”

  “Brute force, then,” Cloridan said, jamming his dagger straight into it.

  “Just watch out,” I said, “I’m pretty sure there's a big gun waiting for us on the other side.”