As I dived for the floor, all I could think about was the damn self-destruct clock. In my mind’s eye, it was a huge scoreboard inside a sports stadium, with the clock rapidly approaching zero.

We were wasting precious minutes, and time would not wait for us.

The impact of the monster smashing into the walkway was ridiculously loud. The force of the blow had knocked Maria and me clear to the opposite side. We hit the wall, and then hit the grated floor. We hit hard. I could feel the broken glass and the metal floor cut, graze and otherwise destroy any exposed section of my skin. Luckily, Maria was protected by the NBC suit.

Every single one of the windows was now shattered. Next time the monster looked inside, it would find us. Find its dinner.

The walkway continued to tilt and break away. The metal structure began to twist and warp out of shape. Suddenly, giant claws appeared through where the windows used to be. It took a firm grip on the walkway and began to pull. The footbridge broke away from the research compound.

We tried getting to our feet, but it was no use. Each time we stood we were knocked back to the floor. It was like an earthquake. A big freakin earthquake.

The walkway tilted again, the wall became the floor. I nearly fell out of the broken window.

Down below I could see the infected. Mindless. Relentless.

The monster roared and brushed them aside like they were ants, squashing them, flattening them and ripping them in half.

It wanted us all for itself.

I still had Maria gripped tightly in both arms and she had her legs braced against one of the window sills, making sure we didn’t fall out. We needed to get moving. In my mind’s eye, the giant scoreboard with the self-destruct clock continued counting down to zero. Faster and Faster.

“Hold on,” I said to Maria. “We can do this.”

As I spoke, I tasted blood. It was gushing out of a cut to my forehead, blurring my vision. The ground below turned dark and for a second I thought I was going to pass out and fall to my death. But just then I heard a hissing sound.

The dark ground began to move. It looked like black quicksand.

The monster paused, halting its attack on the walkway. The mutation moved away from us. Sniffing. Grunting. Growling.

The hissing sound grew louder.

“Quick! Take my hand!” It was Daniel.

The guys had formed a human chain to get us. Jack was at the top, then Kenji, then Daniel.

“Hurry!”

I grabbed Daniel’s hand and grabbed Maria and the guys pulled us up and out of the walkway. Once we were clear, we collapsed on the floor of the military facility.

I was on my back, desperately trying to catch my breath, wiping blood out of my eyes.

“Where did it go?” Kenji asked.

We had lost sight of the monster; its footsteps were softer now.

“Tariq, where is it?” Daniel asked.

“It is backing away from your position.”

“What? Why?”

“The nano-swarm.”

“It’s here already?”

“Yes. It came in fast. It must have been attracted by all the noise.”

Daniel swore under his breath and checked his watch.

“How long before this place blows?” I asked.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“We need to go,” Kenji said.

“Yeah,” I answered between deep breaths.

We heard another roar from outside. Louder than anything we’d heard so far. Some of the windows cracked and shattered. Then we heard a huge crash, like something had either exploded or fallen from a great height.

I ran up to one of the blackened windows and peeked outside. “Wait. It’s gone!”

“What?” Daniel asked.

“The monster, it’s gone,” I said in amazement.

Daniel spoke into the walkie-talkie. “Tariq, can you see it?”

“I do not believe it,” Tariq said.

“What? What’s going on out there?”

“It is gone. The monster, the swarm. They are gone. The nano-swarm, it rose up in front of the monster, engulfing it, tripping it over, taking its legs.”

“Where are they now?”

“I do not know how to explain this,” he paused. “It … the nano-swarm, it dragged the monster back out into the desert.”

“So where is it now?”

“I am searching for it. I just picked up some movement. It would appear it has moved outside of the motion sensors.”

“That’s ten miles out?” Kenji said. “Damn that was fast.”

“Good,” Daniel said. “At least that will give us time. Let’s get to the armory and get this over with. It won’t be long before the swarm comes back.”

***

The military side of the outpost was basically a mirrored version of the research facility. The only difference we could see was that there were no laboratories on the military side.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Maria asked. “No lab on this side means no nasty viruses.”

No one answered her.

We made our way into the armory. It was located on the ground floor, next to the garage. In the garage we found two Humvees parked side by side, just like on the research side.

“Got the keys,” Jack said excitedly. “Time for some rally-car driving action.”

This was good news. Not only was our entire plan dependent on the use of Humvees, but it meant that we could use them to get out of here.

But they also posed a troubling question.

Why were they still here? Why didn’t the surviving soldiers take them when they left?

Daniel radioed Tariq, informing him that we could use one of these vehicles to get away from here.

“Wait,” I said, wiping more blood out of my eyes. “If there’s two Humvees parked on this side, then that means the soldiers didn’t take any vehicles when they left.”

“I guess not,” Kenji said. “Hey, are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I answered, wiping blood on my jeans. “Tariq said the soldiers had just vanished, right?”

“Yeah. Although the ones that had been infected are supposedly locked up in the research lab.”

“So they must’ve taken off on foot,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Why would they do that, when they had four perfectly good Humvees at their disposal?”

“I don’t know,” Daniel said. “But we can worry about that later. For all we know the soldiers are dead. Or infected. We just don’t know. But look,” he said as he held up his watch. “We’ve only got eleven minutes to get this done and get out of here.”

Time kept slipping away. We were cutting this way too close for comfort.

We quickly helped ourselves to what felt like all the guns in the world. There were rows and rows of rifles, hand guns, shotguns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers.

Kenji took a sniper rifle and another smaller rifle. And a grenade launcher.

Jack armed himself with two hand guns and a rifle. They each had a small backpack worth of ammunition.

“OK,” Jack continued, “Just like we did back at the SCG. After the sentinels clear out the infected, I’ll drive around and distract the remaining ones. While I’m doing that, you guys get the EMP generators back online. Easy, right?”

Daniel handed Jack a spare walkie-talkie. “Before you drive outside, we will need to disarm the sentinels.”

“Got it,” Jack said, nodding.

“This is important,” Daniel continued. “The sentinels will fire upon moving targets. They will not discriminate. Do not go outside until we have turned them off.”

“I got this,” Jack answered as he took the walkie-talkie. “This ain’t my first time. Just give me the all clear.”

“So basically we turn the security system on and kill as many infected as possible,” Maria said quickly and nervously, as she recapped our hastily put together plan for the hundredth time. “Then we turn it off, Jack drives out into the open, and distracts the remaining infected. Kenji covers us, and then we turn on the EMP field. Is that right?”

“Correct,” Daniel said, checking his watch again. “Ten minutes.”

“This is gonna be close,” I said.

“I’ll get up to the nearest gun tower and provide cover,” Kenji said as he picked up his backpack of spare ammunition.

As he was leaving, he gave me a slight nod, which I think meant, ‘good luck’, or, ‘I’ll be fine’, or maybe something more. I’m not sure. I haven’t had the chance to ask him. Looking back, I really wish I’d said something. Or hugged him.

Jack had already jumped into the nearest Humvee. “Let me know when,” he said over the radio.

“What about weapons for the nano-swarm?” I asked.

“Huh?” Daniel said.

“Ben had that harpoon gun thing. And EMP grenades. There might be some here as well.”

At the end of the row of assault rifles, we found a small section, simply labeled ‘prototypes’.

“Good idea,” Daniel said. “I hadn’t even thought to look for these.”

I held up a belt of EMP grenades. “We can use these as a backup,” I said. “In case plan ‘A’ fails.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. “You’re starting to think more and more like a soldier.”

Next to the EMP grenades I found one of the harpoon guns. I picked it up. It was heavy. Daniel would have to be the one to use it. If it came down to that.

“Are there any harpoons to load it with?” Maria asked.

We checked a few of the containers but there didn’t seem to be any.

I was about to put the harpoon gun down and grab as many EMP grenades as I could hold, when I noticed some Japanese writing on the side of the weapon.

I couldn’t read the Japanese writing. But just below that it read:

MX1

YoshidaCorp.

“YoshidaCorp?” I asked out loud to myself.

Maria looked at me. “Did you say something?”

“Yeah. On this weapon, it says, ‘YoshidaCorp’.”

“Isn’t that Kenji’s last name?”

“Yeah. I think that’s the name of his father’s company.”

“Guys,” Tariq said, over the radio. “I think we have a problem. The nano-swarm appears to be coming back. It is making its way to your position right now.”

I guess it was finished with the big monster thing.

Daniel moved over to the one and only window of the armory. He picked up a knife and scratched out a tiny peep hole in the window and had a look outside. “Are you sure? I don’t see anything.”

“Yes. It is coming right for you. It is coming fast”

I should’ve been scared. The rogue nano-swarm was coming back. It was coming for us. But I was still staring at the writing on the harpoon gun.

YoshidaCorp.

What did it mean?

Daniel moved over and snatched the weapon out of my hand. “Hey, you need to focus.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

“Look, it doesn’t mean anything. Yoshida is probably a very common name.”

I shook my head. “No. It’s too much of a coincidence.”

The walkie-talkie crackled to life again. “Daniel?” It was Tariq.

“Yeah?”

“According to the proximity sensors, the nano-swarm is three miles out and closing.”

“OK, we better hurry.”

We moved out of the armory and back up the stairs. Daniel quickly found a room with the label, ‘operations’ on the door. He said this is where the controls would be.

Inside the room were more computers. All of the computers were still on, making me think that whatever had happened here had only just happened. Which means, the soldiers had only just left or disappeared. Or died. Something about this whole situation was unnerving, but at that moment, with a doomsday clock counting down, and a rogue nano-swarm hunting us, I couldn’t figure out why.

Daniel sat down in front of the nearest computer and basically hacked into the system in a matter of seconds.

“I can’t disable the explosives,” he said. “The self-destruct sequence is locked in. But the security system is live. Sentinels are armed. Running hot.”

A split second later we could hear the machine guns from the towers. The buzz saw noise of the mini-guns filled the desert as their rotating barrels made short work of the remaining infected.

Daniel brought up several images from the surveillance cameras. From this vantage point we could watch as the infected began disintegrating before our very eyes. They were mowed down by a constant, never-ending barrage of bullets. Or metal rain as Daniel called it.

“There’s a problem,” Kenji said over the radio. “The guns can’t reach the infected that are closest to the compound walls.”

“What? Why not?” Daniel asked.

“I’m guessing they weren’t designed to shoot at targets so close to the actual facilities.”

“What do we do?” Maria asked “We can’t go running around out there with the infected.”

“We have to,” Daniel said as he handed me a rifle. “Kenji, you’ll have to cover us as well. In the meantime, try and take out as many as you can.”

Daniel handed me another rifle and slung it over my back. He then handed me two smaller handguns.

“I think that’s enough,” I said. “I’m not Rambo.”

“I was thinking more like what’s her face from the Matrix. Trinity.”

“I’m not her either.”

“I know. But these will come in handy, especially since you might not have time to re-load. If you don’t, just draw your next weapon, OK?”

I nodded, suddenly realizing I was about to step outside into an extremely hostile situation.

“If they’re close,” Daniel continued. “Use your sidearm. But if you’ve got time, use the M4. Much more powerful.”

He loaded up Maria as well. She looked even more uncomfortable than I did.

“Daniel,” Tariq said. “The proximity sensors are picking up movement two miles away. It is getting closer.”

“All right, we gotta do this now. You two ready?” he asked, making eye contact with me and then Maria.

Maria was silent, biting her bottom lip. She definitely did not look ready.

Unfortunately, I was no better. “No, we’re not ready,” I finally answered. “But we don’t have a choice. So let’s get this over with.”

“Kenji, you ready?” Daniel asked through the walkie-talkie.

There was no response. Outside, we could hear a few gunshots. Single shots. One after the other.

A second later Kenji replied. “Yeah, I got your back. Make sure you guys stick together. I can’t cover two people, in two different places at once.”

“Got it,” Daniel said.

Daniel turned off the security system. The guns stopped. “Jack,” he said. “The sentinels have been disarmed.”

“Copy that,” Jack answered.

He made eye contact with Maria and me once more. No words were spoken.

It was time to go.

“Wait!” Tariq said over the radio.

“What?”

“Stay put. Do not move.”

“Why?”

“The swarm,” he whispered. “It is here.”