To Be A Hero

Chapter 52: Got My Mind Set On You

"Ah, Runner Five. Prompt as ever. Very good, very good," Janine says, and I huff, knowing I was almost late since I misread the message she left for me, and thought we were to meet inside Abel instead of just outside the gates. Janine looks at the headset on my head, and the one in my hand. She takes it from me.

"Yes, good thinking to bring your headset, I suppose. Although," She pauses to laugh, "this mission is outside operational parameters. Quite a long ways outside, hence this meeting just outside Abel's gates, and the secrecy. We shan't call on Abel unless we need them. We shan't need them."

"Precautions," I say. "And I even removed the trackers, so if they get turned on, Sam won't know where we are."

She nods, eyeing the headset in her hands before putting it. Her blue eyes snap to me. "You trust me, don't you, Runner Five? I trust you. You know that. Not to begin with, of course. Not at the start. How could any of us trust you? Sarah Smith was quite right to be wary. Sometimes I think I ought to have been warier myself... Too late for that now.

"Come along. I don't want us out too late. Our absence from the mess hall will be noted. We'll take the old tunnels. That's quickest. I brought torches for us, and flares, and guns, just in case. There's no need to panic. This mission is perfectly safe. All we're going to do is infiltrate Netrophil. Quickly now, run!"

She rushes off before I can reply, and I'm forced to follow her. My hand already itches to turn on my headset. Something about this just seems wrong. Maybe it's the speech Janine just gave me about trust. I mean, her saying she trusts me is probably one of the nicest things she's ever said to me, but she sounded so frazzled, so... different from her normal self. I understand the stress and guilt over Sarah's kidnapping has been weighing on her, but I'm beginning to fear she might be starting to snap.

Actually, she might already have.

My posture is stiff as we run along towards the city. There's a lot of pain and soreness, and I can't help but wonder why Janine wanted to do this after such a stressful run yesterday. I guess she feels that this is too important to wait for. And, in a way, it is. Netrophil tried to take Sarah for some reason, and we need to know why.

Why a baby? Why Sarah specifically? It's very odd. I mean, Sarah is immune, but there is no way anyone from Netrophil could have known that. We didn't even know that at the time!

Maybe they just wanted to do it to break down morale. That would seem like something they would do. If you can break a person's spirit, you might as well have killed them completely.

We reach the edge of the city, and Janine leads me into a small building. It looks like some kind of hardware store, or maybe a tool supply shop. We then go down into the basement, and Janine opens a door at the very back of the room. Behind the doors are multiple tunnels, all connecting to each other. She grabs one of her torches and lights it up.

"These tunnels are the safest way to enter the city undetected," She says as we head inside.

"Undetected by Netrophil or undetected by zombies?" I ask.

"Undetected by Netrophil." She pauses when a moan comes echoing down from one of the connecting tunnels, and she urges us to pick up the pace. "Unfortunately, there have been a fair few zombies trapped down here since the outbreak. I suppose they took shelter here, poor souls. When I was down here before, they seemed to have been able to see in the dark. It's a little puzzling."

"Not the word I would use, but alright," I say, shuddering.

"And what word would you use, Runner Five?"

"Terrifying. That's a little terrifying that they can almost see in the dark."

Janine hums. "Yes, I believe you're right. I should make a note in a briefing document for the Ministry... That's what I was trained to do, you know. Record everything, however inconsequential or irrelevant it seemed. Observe, record, evaluate. One never knows what one might put together in a quiet moment at the end of a long day with a glass of whiskey in hand, reviewing a year's worth of briefing notes."