James' legs twiddle-twaddled like a toddler—was what it felt like to him.

Among the scouts, he was the one who skipped out on training the most, and for good reason.

"Running around doing errands for the community is also another form of running."

What lies to tell himself.

The moment Michael had rushed into the alley, he, himself, rushed out. It was a 600-meter run towards the Bio-Police's approximate location. By now, they should have detected the horde. At the same time, they should also be vaguely aware of "a survivor desperately running away at the head of the horde". To keep up with appearances, he had purposely slowed the pace of his run to appear tired.

Once he was 300 meters to the target, he livened up his pace, partly to give off the impression of a "second wind", but also because the zombies behind him were actually catching up.

—Those are some ridiculously fast walkers, huh?

Mutations were known to occur among the infected. Among them, and most profound, were the Longleg mutants. Nothing else but their legs grew, if only by a few inches, giving them the impression of being zombies on stilts. It doesn't dangerously increase their speed over the short term, as even an armchair philosopher could run away from them, but for zombies who had lost all endurance running capability, that tiny bit of extra speed was a critical boost to their endurance stalking predation style.

For a conceited survivor, such a thing could spell death if they slowed too much.

James' stamina was taking a good hit just with this short run. Perhaps Karlson would beat him into shape once again after this, but for now, one of the Bio-Police armored cars were coming into view.

The minigun turret turned his way. Now it was just a matter of seeing what their reaction was.

He kept running, and running, and still, they did nothing. Maybe they were waiting for him to clear their line-of-fire? That must be the case.

In that case, he went and invoked his "third wind", and went just slightly faster. Instead of darting right past the armored car, however, he threw paint balloons at the driver's windows and the minigun turret's camera. Also, he stuffed modelling clay over the mouth of the exhaust pipe. No doubt, the personnel inside should be bewildered at his nonviolent aggression. The turret was spinning left and right, as if trying to shake off the paint.

—Sorry, guys.

As long as they didn't come out, they'd be okay.

Originally, the minigun turret was facing a certain road, so he ran down there. If they were attempting to cut off Aurelia's routes of escape, then that road should lead him to her. Since the Bio-Police had the confidence of overhead reconnaissance, they wouldn't have turned the turret to intercept the horde until the last moment, so he was confident that they didn't just happen to be pointing in a weird direction in that moment.

Behind him, the armored car attempted to circle around, but the engine cut out, and it was left dead in the water. The horde soon caught up, swarming all around the vehicle, still heading straight for James.

By now, the commander should be hearing something like, "Sir, a random survivor disabled our vehicle! There's a horde heading your way!"

Then the commander would reply, "What? You incompetent fools!"

Though, what Cain actually replied was "Acknowledged," before ordering the vehicle and support crews to button down, and for the other squads to prepare for horde combat.

On the other hand, he did also wonder how a single person was able to disable an armored car. It was clear that this was an attack aimed at them, especially considering that his men reported their visuals were obstructed with paint—evidence that the attacker was prepared to deal with an armored car, and thus, the attacker had always been aware of them, at least superficially.

For a moment, he thought back to the scouts whom they had met earlier in the morning.

The drone operators did report some other survivor movements, which they said seemed to be scrambling because of the passing horde. Considering the attacker and the number of survivor sightings, there was a good chance the scouts were involved. However, the scouts didn't have a motive to attack. His friend, Coronel himself, issued a "White Fox" designation for their group.

Then again, there was the circumstantial fact that the Gamma they had tracked down to the hardware store earlier that morning had most likely made contact with the scouts. There was also the recent fact that the random civilian escaping out the window, and thereafter carried off by the Gamma, appeared as if he was consenting to it.

With all those taken into account, there was a good chance that the Gamma they were intending to capture was actually known to the scouts themselves, or dare he conjecture, acquainted.

This was bad. He and Coronel earlier conjectured that those survivors must have belonged to the Diliman survivor community. They were much too well-kempt to simply have been nomadic scavengers living day-to-day. Their weapons, too—even their spears and fighting sticks displayed craftsmanship that wasn't possible without an organized society. Diliman was a high-interest population in the Bio-Police's system, and was the only such nearby population that could equip survivors with that kind of equipment. Antagonizing its forces wasn't desirable, and it was something that he, as a commander, couldn't properly deal with on his own.

"Coronel," he called out.

"I already know," Coronel replied.

"You do?"

"This Gamma, and the survivors from earlier, are probably related, aren't they?"

"Along with bringing Diliman to our side… What's your advice?"

As James ran down the street, a certain building caught his eye. A line of bullet impacts tore up its entrance. It was obvious that the armored car from earlier was targeting something on the ground floor of the building. Lacking other information, he took a gamble and concluded that Aurelia was in there—along with a lot of Bio-Police.

Someone was waving at him from behind a concrete post, down the road beyond the building. It was Tali.

He ignored the building and ran past it. Most likely, the Bio-Police would stay quiet and avoid opening fire at someone who wasn't coming right at them. If they did, they'd draw the attention of the horde.

As it happened, he was still alive, so either no one was guarding the entrance, or they simply didn't open fire.

"Where's Joseph?"

At James' question, Tali pointed to a building across from the one where Aurelia was.

"W- What are we gonna do about that?" she asked, pointing at the horde, whose members were leisurely making their way towards them.

"Ah, well, let's see. Oreo's probably in that building over there, but going through the front entrance doesn't seem like a good idea."

A bullet ricocheted from the ground about 10 meters behind them, opposite to the direction of the horde. They scrambled to get behind the concrete post before they even thought to confirm the source of the gunshot that came later.

It was a grey silhouette that hovered between the buildings. There was a flash, and another plume of concrete erupted several meters away. They pulled themselves back into cover.

It was then that James noticed the small gap between the target building and the adjacent building. There were windows leading into the target building, whereas the adjacent building's wall had none.

The safest route would have been to squeeze themselves in the gap between buildings and climb up just like that. Although there would be zombies waiting for them below, it mostly meant that they wouldn't need to deal with the Bio-Police. On the other hand, if they rushed through the front entrance, there would likely be a gunfight, which would also attract the attention of the incoming horde. Between those two choices, the first would have been the best, if only James wasn't tired.

Though it didn't look like it, Tali was tired, as well. He wasn't sure if it was still physically possible to climb up the wall with their remaining stamina.

There was still the third option of quietly surrendering to the Bio-Police. They could avoid a gunfight and the horde in that case. If push came to shove, Joseph was still taking aim from across the street, and there were additional reinforcements in the form of Karlson and Michael.

With those factors… It would become a hostage situation, but somehow, it would be the police who were the hostage takers.

In the name of buying time, it was still the best course of action.

"Alright, we're surrendering."

"What?"

"You think you can climb that gap?"

"Well…"

"We can't win in a gunfight, either."

"I suppose…"

"We're the only ones surrendering. Joseph will keep watch, while Karlson and Michael will be our reinforcements later on."

Tali didn't look so confident.

"I'll make something up as we go along, don't worry."

James' attempt at an assurance somehow made Tali more fearful.

They walked through the front entrance with raised hands. The soldiers waiting there kept their rifles trained on them, but otherwise didn't appear so nervous.

"Commander, we've detained two foxes at the front door."

"Bring them up."

Cain and Coronel looked at each other.

"What are they thinking?" "I don't know. Do you know?" "I don't know."

Each one wordlessly performed both parts of the dialogue in parallel, and with only one glance.

In front of them, the last combat-effective shock trooper, Amadeus Io, was at the head of several soldiers in standard loadout. They were taking cover behind corner walls that funneled into a straight corridor, at the end of which were Aurelia and Tristan. One of the soldiers tried to take a peek, at which a gunshot rang out, and two plumes of dust erupted: in front of the soldier's face, and another behind him. He quickly pulled his head back and urged the guy behind him to take his place.

Although the gunshots were loud, the Bio-Police's rifles were all still suppressed to some degree. Along with the fact that they were indoors at a somewhat-high floor, there was little danger of attracting the horde outside.

"I can't believe they managed to steal a rifle," Coronel remarked.

"We advanced too fast and spread ourselves thin," Cain replied.

"They're being considerate in not outright killing any of our men, aren't they?"

"Still, why won't they talk to us?"

Amadeus stuck out another white flag-on-a-stick. "We just want to talk!" he shouted. Aurelia replied by sniping the stick in half. The white flag fell to the floor, joining other white flags in a growing pile of rejection. Despite this, Amadeus was handed another white flag.

"Cain, my friend, you can't ask for friendship after accurately placing several hundred rounds on-target."

"Even if we've clearly stopped actively trying to capture it…"

"How I wish I had thoughts as convenient as yours."

"Do you mind being considerate of others' feelings?"

"Do you?"

Coronel was not a negotiator for nothing.

James and Tali were escorted to the 7th floor by three soldiers. They passed the shot-up office floors and the broken-open doors up the emergency staircase. Aurelia should never have been subjected to something like this.

In a blink, they found themselves face-to-face with Coronel. Behind him, the Bio-Police were taking cover. Another gunshot rang out, chipping away at the corner wall.