"To Kill A Runner" Chapter 20 "Cadaver Lab" (Cyberpunk Fiction)

“This Is Allegheny County Police, We have this clinic surrounded. Let The hostages go or we will be forced to use lethal force upon you!” Barked the police officer over the megaphone.

“Megana, how many are out there ? “ Jarome asked, his eyes darting around in panic

“ I can see a swat van and a few armored vehicles. We need to get out of here and we can't use the front door.” Megana responded.

The surgeon stands back from Britney as she lifted her back up and looked up groggy at Jarome. Then moved her legs to stand. Lifting her robotic arm to look at it and looking amazed, the whirring sound of servos and hydraulics moving in her arm a strange new experience.

“Look, If you took care of the Kings in this neighborhood I owe you guys. You just made my job a lot easier. “ The surgeon said “ I cannot stop Lone Star from chasing you but I can give you a way out of here, and down in the tunnels you could probably lose them.”

“What tunnels are you talking about ? If they can get us out of here lets get to them, now!” Jarome shouted to Megana and helped Britney up while handing her a pistol.

The three close ranks and move to the hall way, following the surgeon led down a long clean brightly lit hallway and then opening a heavy metal door. A sloping ramp going down several declines most likely meant for stretcher medical beds to rolled down the decline. Rushing them down several levels and then to a large set of double doors with another electronic lock this one with a badge reader. The surgeon took his badge off the lanyard from around his neck and swiped it causing the door to make a buzzing and then a click of the doors lock releasing. He then handed the badge to Jarome and began to give an explanation.

“ These tunnels connect each and every clinic in the city and lead to the central hospital of Pittsburgh. They used to be for transporting dead or terminally ill patients to the central hospital. That was before the American outbreak of H.M.H.V.V., now the tunnels are considered to be too contaminated and dangerous for passage. Take my badge and go now I have to go back upstairs and erase the camera footage file before I let the police in. “

“What is H.M.H.V.V. ?” Jarome hesitantly asked before the surgeon guided them into the old tunnels and shut the door with them inside.

The tunnels were little different than the other sterilized and off-white rooms and hallways of the clinic upstairs but only a flickering light illuminated a small area near the beginning of the long hall way. The rest of the lights down the hallway where shut off which left an eerie and ominous darkness to the path ahead. Britney quickly making use of the LCD display cast a glowing light out of cybernetic forearm she then raised her pistol to be on guard for what may come out of the shadows or the officers that would be following them from the rear.

“Ghouls. He meant there are infected down here.” Britney said as she nudged Jarome to lift his rifle and move forward taking point. “ H.M.H.V.V. stands for human, meta-human vampiric virus. If the infected do not receive fresh plasma on a daily basis, the skin ages and rots, but the subject will not die from natural causes. We just got locked in with the violent crazed blood hungry corpses”

“You mean like Zombies from the movies?” Jarome said as he moved forward.

“No, vampires, starving vampires.”

Megana shuttered at the thought and also pulled out her own glock pistol and pulling the slide back and cambering a round to defend herself at a moments notice reaction. The trio began moving down the tunnel past a decrepit wheel chair and plaster ceiling tiles that had fallen to the spotted tile floor. They traversed the darkness until met with a room that had a door with a broken handle. Inside were rows of cadavers on metal slab tables. A trail of brown stained dried blood leaving a trail from a few empty tables.

“We should have turned ourselves in “ Jarome said as he looked upon the nightmarish cadaver lab.

Catch up on previous chapters:

1. Chapter  I - Down & Out
2. Chapter II - Bore Snakes & Hammer Bites
3. Chapter III - The Plan
4. Chapter IV - Pixie Dust Attack -i wlan0mon
5. Chapter V - A Fixer & A Fence
6. Chapter VI - Prep Work
7. Chapter VII - Living The Dream
8. Chapter VIII - Seeking Asylum
9. Chapter IX - Breathmaker
10. Chapter X - Nanook
11. Chapter XI - Wolf Hunt
12. Chapter XII - Rising Paw
13. Chapter XIII - Lucky Number
14. Chapter XIV - Drawing Dead
15. Chapter XV - Explosive Division
16. Chapter XVI - Street Crime
17. Chapter XVII - Three River City
18. Chapter XVIII - Dog Food
19. Chapter XIX - Street Doctor