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The old Shinra building loomed over the ruins of Midgar. No one dared venture into it; it looked like it was about to collapse. But there were those who stayed near, outcasts and loaners who chose not to move to Edge, or the gangs that used to rule the slums, clinging to their old ways. No one paid them any mind. Rufus had abandoned the tower. “Let it rot,” he’d told them. Neo Shinra had become his obsession and anything from his father’s rule would only tarnish his new image. The Turks had stripped the Tower of any useful information and files and never looked back.
Until today. Reno and Rude stood at the front entrance, gazing at the building threatening to collapse over them. Rumors had reached Tseng’s ears about a new kind of monster, one that wore a human face and devoured its victims, was impossible to kill and could transform its victims into one of its own. And of course, this new monster was said to come from Shinra Tower.
And Rufus can’t have that. The public knows full well by now what atrocities have been committed by Shinra scientists. He will not allow Hojo’s reputation to threaten his own. The Turks had been dispatched to get the situation under control.
“This is bullshit,” Reno whined. “Some assholes get fucked up on whatever new shit they’re selling, now it’s our fucking problem.”
Rude ignored him. The mission was simple: Find the source of the rumors and handle it, the Turk way. They had prowled through the surrounding area but there was no sign of cannibalistic psychopaths. The locals all told the same story, though. They all reported seeing at least one person being attacked by a group of monsters. One pair told the Turks they tried to fight the monsters off, but their weapons didn’t work. They stabbed them in the chest, broke their legs with metal bars, but they kept coming.
“What did these monsters look like?” Rude had asked.
“People, man. Just some guys. But they were walking all funny, and they were pale as shit.”
“Yeah, and they had these like, dead eyes.”
“You’re saying you saw a walking corpse?” Reno kept just professional enough to not roll his eyes.
“I swear, man. I know it’s crazy, but yeah, like walking dead guys.”
“They bit Shaun! Tried to chew his damn arm off!” They lead the Turks to their home, a building that had survived Meteor. Their buddy, Shaun, was laying on a pile of blankets. Blood dripped from the sheet wrapped around his forearm and sweat soaked through his clothes.
“Let me see.” Reno crouched down to examine the wound and hissed. Deep teeth marks, distinctively human shaped, marred the skin, and the smell coming off of them…
“How long ago did this happen?”
“This morning. We were in Sector Zero,”
“Looking for the monsters!”
“Yeah, we thought we could take them, you know? Keep the place safe.” This time Reno did roll his eyes. Fucking civilian idiots.
“How many were there?” Rude asked.
“Two. In the lobby of the Shinra building.”
“Did you see where they went?”
“Nah, man. We grabbed Shaun and ran.”
Reno pulled out his phone. “Tseng, we got a civilian down, attacked by whatever the fuck this shit is. Looks like an infection. Gonna need a medevac ASAP.”
“On the way,” Tseng’s voice came back. “Any leads yet?”
“Nothing solid. We’re heading into HQ to check it out.”
“Keep me posted.”
They watched the helicopter carry Shaun away from the foot of the Tower. “Guess we’re going hunting, partner.”
“You believe them?” Rude asked.
“I dunno. That bite was definitely human.”
“Could be something from Hojo’s lab. Cross breed or virus.”
Reno raised an eyebrow. “What virus do you know of that makes people go psycho?”
“Rabies,” Rude said simply.
Reno gaped at him. “If I catch fucking rabies from this shit. I’m gonna drag that lunatic back from the Lifestream so I can kill him all over again.”
They entered the doors, and even Reno had his gun held ready. “Don’t think I wanna fuck around with close combat if we got rabid biters on the loose.” Their Maglite’s swept the floor but nothing moved. Shadows crept around them while they explored behind the desk, the old display vehicles, even the gift shop up the stairs. Nothing.
“Whatever was here is long gone.”
“Keep moving up?”
“How far up d’you think we can get before this shit all collapses?” Rude shrugged. “Elevators out; no electricity anymore. We’re gonna have to do this the hard way.”
The emergency stairwell was pitch black. Reno shone his flashlight up along the floors. They knew the top floors had caved in, but they couldn’t quite see up that high. No noise drifted down toward them. Where they were, the stairs were solid, and they began to climb.
They explored each floor thoroughly, not finding anything of note. The silence was eerie, they listened for anything out of place, but the once bustling offices had a heavy quiet to them. They had been hastily evacuated during Meteor, with papers scattered across the floors and several items left behind. Searching the desks, Reno pocketed some gil and a fancy looking lighter.
“Heh, check this out, partner.” Reno held up a pen with a business woman on the end; when he turned it over her clothes slipped off.
Rude merely raised an eyebrow, clearly not amused. Reno kept it anyway. “You gotta grow a sense of humor sometime, Rude.”
“I have a sense of humor,” Rude said. “You’re just not funny.”
“Fuck you. Everyone thinks I’m hilarious.”
“You say hilarious, we say annoying...” Rude was already into the stairwell when the girly pen bounced off the back of his head. “Hey shithead-” But Reno shushed him and ran to the railing just as something heavy whooshed passed them and collided with the ground floor in a sickening thunk.
Leaning out for a better look, they could just make out a body, arms and legs splayed out, and a splat of dark blood around it.
“What the fuck?” They both looked up to see where the body had come from, but there was neither noise nor movement above them. “He didn’t even scream,” Reno said, keeping his voice low.
“Something’s not right here.” Rude also kept quiet. They were not alone in the tower.
“Can say that again. Whatcha think, examine the body or keep heading up?”
“Don’t think there’s anything worth examining.” The body below them was clearly broken, clearly dead, and clearly not going anywhere. “Besides, if he was pushed, someone else could still be up there.”
“Yeah… Keep heading up, sweep as we go. You stay in the stairwell, make sure no one gets past us, alright? There’s no other way out of the building.” Rude nodded and they moved up toward the next floor.
It wasn’t until floor 40 they saw something out of the ordinary. Reno had kept his sweeps efficient, trying to work through as many floors as quickly as possible, while Rude guarded the exit. Floor 40 had been aeronautics and space research. In the front was a small display of planets and planes and airships. What grabbed Reno’s attention, however, was the body tangled in the models hanging from the ceiling.
It had been a very long time since Reno had seen anything this gruesome. It looked to be a male, someone who had been struggling to untangle himself from the wires, but the metal pole attached to a model rocket jammed through his eye prevented his success. The thing that struck Reno, though, was that the man had no skin, muscles, organs, even his face was gone. Keeping his weapon out, Reno examined the corpse and found bite marks in the bones. The man had been picked clean by what looked like human teeth.
“Holy shit…”
A shuffling sound drifted from the back of the floor. Reno whipped around with his gun raised, Rude did the same from his station at the door.
From an office in the back came a woman, limping slowly toward them. Reno guessed she used to work there; she had a Shinra badge with her photo, alive and excited, reading Lucille Romero. Though her skin was pale, blood covered her hands and ran from her mouth down her blouse. A low gurgling moan came from deep in her throat as she made her way toward them.
Reno gestured for Rude to stay put. “Stay where you are,” he called to the woman. She continued on, her eyes somehow vacant but focused on Reno. “I said stay where you are. We can help you, but I need to ask you some questions.” Still she came, stumbling slightly around a chair pulled out from a desk. “Stop now or I’ll shoot.” The sounds she made sounded almost like a growl as she came closer. She reached her arms out, almost close enough to lunge, and Reno fired. His first shot hit her shoulder, but she hardly seemed to notice. The second landed square in her chest; she fell to the floor but was back up almost at once. The third hit true, right between her eyes, and finally she stayed down.
Cautiously, Reno nudged her with his boot; no reaction. Her eyes were unnaturally cloudy, like a white film settled in. The skin was a sallow yellow and stretched tight across her skull. She looked as though she had been dead for months, not seconds.
Reno crouched down, using a pen to move her pale lips from her teeth. Exactly what he suspected, she had strips of flesh caught in her front teeth, likely from her tangled companion. The blood on her hands and face were not her own; in fact, the holes Reno put into her weren’t bleeding at all.
“How the fuck…. Rude, come look at this!”
“Those shots echoed through the whole building, Reno. Whoever else is here knows we’re here now.”
"I'll trade you spots, just get over here!”
Rude performed his own examination, then glanced at the devoured corpse near the front again. “She ate him.”
“Yeah, no shit. Did you see her take two shots like nothing?” Rude nodded. “She was dead long before we got here. Something here is seriously fucked.” Reno shone his light over the railing, but the light couldn’t penetrate far. “I want to look at the jumper. How long has that asshole been gone before he fell?” He started downward, two steps at a time, until he was close enough to look over the railing. But when he shone his light downward, the body was gone.
“What the shit…” There was a trail of brown gore leading to the stairwell. Reno continued down the stairs, gun raised, with Rude close behind him. On the platform below them they found the body. Crawling on its hands, pulling broken legs behind it, what used to be a man pulled itself up the stairs. It emitted the same snarling growl as the woman as it reached out to grab at Reno’s boots.
Reno pulled out his EMR and cracked it through the thing’s skull. It stilled, seemingly dead. Rude continued down the stairwell while Reno examined the body. It was in similar shape to the woman, in such an advanced state of decay that it had been dead for months or longer.
“I think we should take one of these back to the labs. See if they can figure out what the fuck Hojo did.” Reno called out; Rude was a full floor below him now. “Really don’t wanna touch it, though.”
“That’s the least of our problems,” Rude’s voice carried up, followed by hurried footsteps. Then Reno heard it, the same low groan, but amplified. Looking over the railing, he saw dozens of the creatures pouring in from the parking garage.
“Shit!” He turned and dashed up the stairs, Rude right behind him. The creatures were slow and soon they put several floors between them and their pursuers.
“Help me with this.” Rude pushed through a doorway onto level 34, data archives. Together, they pushed heavy filing cabinets into the stairwell to block the path.
“Think that’ll hold them?” Reno asked.
“I’m not sticking around to find out.” Rude continued up the stairs, keen to put as much distance between them and the monsters as possible.
“You know there’s probably more up here. We kinda maybe just trapped ourselves,” Reno panted as he kept up.
“Tseng’s got the chopper. Call for an evac.”
“The roof’s collapsed. How is he supposed to get to us?”
“Skyview balcony,” Rude said simply.
“That’s twenty floors above us!” The Turks were in excellent shape but running up so many flights of stairs was taking its toll. “Let’s stop here, I need to breathe.”
They both raised their weapons again and surveyed the area. No immediate sign of danger. “Keep watch while I call Tseng.”
“Update?” Came Tseng’s voice through the phone.
“There is some fucked up shit going on here, boss.”
“Like?”
“Like dead bodies trying to eat people.”
Tseng was silent for a moment. “Run that by me again?”
Reno recounted what they had seen. “That sick fuck created cannibalistic corpses, Tseng. A lot of them. Rude and I need to get the fuck out.”
“Where are you now?”
“Floor 40. We can’t get out of the building; there’s too many coming up from the garage.”
“Can you get to the Skyview or the cafeteria?”
“Probably, but we haven’t been up that high yet. Dunno what’s above us.”
“Alright. See if you can get to the lab; find anything you can on what we’re dealing with. I’ll pick you up at the cafeteria if you can make it, Skyview if you can’t.”
Reno groaned. “Knew you were gonna say something like that. On it, boss.” He hung up. “We gotta get to Dr. Psycho’s lab and find what we can on his experiment.”
“...Of course.” Rude was less than thrilled.
“It’s our job, partner. We’re here to do the dirty work.”
They worked their way up toward the lab, performing a cursory check on each floor as they went. Some undead occupants made their presence known in a few of the offices, but Reno dispatched them quickly with his EMR. In the stairwell they could hear groans of the dead beneath them, thumping into the filing cabinets. So far their barricade was holding, but they knew it was a matter of time before the force of the bodies knocked them over and opened the pathway.
Quickly, they cleared the next 20 floors and arrived at the cafeteria. They stood in the doorway and shone flashlights around the open space; upturned chairs and toppled tables showed the rush of employees trying to evacuate. The tree still stood in the center, but with no water or artificial sunlight supplied for three years, it was dead. A small handful of those walking corpses wandered through the mess, bumping into each other and the furniture.
Reno put a finger to his lips, then backed out slowly. Rude closed the door behind them and they started back up the stairs.
“Just a few more floors to the labs. Looks like the cafeteria is out for an extraction point,” Reno said.
“Didn't see any in Skyview,” Rude replied. “Let’s get what we need and get the fuck out of here.”
Every Turk in Shinra knew to avoid Hojo’s labs, unless specifically ordered otherwise. They often drew straws or other such bets to avoid being assigned guard duty to the scientists. In their prime, the labs just felt wrong; there was a heaviness in the air as soon as you walked through the door that stayed with you for days.
Since being abandoned, that creepy, unsettling atmosphere had gotten worse.
The two Turks moved past the nice entryway designed for tourists and investors, deeper through the hallways to find Hojo’s office. The door was locked and the electronic keypad was dead. “Ya know,” Reno laced his fingers behind his head. “This is gonna be way harder without any electricity.”
Rude threw his shoulder against the door. “Think he even kept hard copies of everything?” He tried again, but the door didn’t budge. “Mind giving me a hand?”
“He should have at least some notes or recorded experiment data or something.” Reno lined himself up with Rude and together they forced the door open. “Don’t all science-y types write everything down in those black and white notebooks?”
The office was large but felt small with the number of filing cabinets crammed into every available space. “Something like that.” Rude picked a cabinet and sat heavily on the floor. “Better get started.”
Reno moved to the opposite side of the office and copied his partner. “There shouldn’t be too much left; didn’t we clean this shit out after Meteor?”
“Only the electronic files.” They both pulled out files to flip through. “If he wanted to hide something, he’d keep it off the network.”
“I’d hate to see anything that fucker wanted to keep hidden.”
“I think we already have,” Rude gestured to the floor, indicating the collection of bodies trying to work their way upwards toward their next meal.
“Sick, twisted fuck,” is all Reno had to say. They fell into silence as they worked through the files.
After half an hour and several cabinets, they still hadn’t found anything relating to these new monsters. “D’ya think he’d even keep something like that up here?” Reno asked. “I mean, this is where he did all his interviews or had to speak to the other directors, shit like that. Would he want anything like this in here?”
“Where else would he keep his private files?”
“He’s got a whole section that only he and his favorite assistants could access. Betcha anything it’s there.”
Rude rubbed his eyes under his glasses. “Sounds great. After you.”
“I’m gonna see if we can even get into that floor. You finish that last cabinet, just in case. I’ll come grab you when I can.”
“And if you don’t come back, call Tseng and leave you behind?
“Don’t you dare leave me to rot in this hell hole. Call Tseng and bring in the damn army to rescue my ass.”
Rude chuckled. “Yes, sir.”
Deeper into the maze of hallways, he found the lab itself. Like all of the other floors they’d searched, tables were upturned and equipment littered the floor. Brainy scientists were not immune to the panic Meteor brought to the city. Reno crept around the tables until he found a body. wearing a blood-stained lab coat, ID tag Max Brooks, it was crumbled on the floor near the door leading to the next lab; a brown-red handprint had been dragged from the keypad down the wall.
Upon inspecting the body, Reno found it in much the same shape as the first one they found: all soft tissue had been torn away, and a part of the skull was caved in, as if from an attack. He nudged it with his boot, but it didn’t stir. This one was actually dead.
The door had not latched. Reno was able to tug it open and step through to Hojo’s private labs. This is where he conducted his most gruesome experiments, and likely where he would store anything he didn’t want the rest of the company to know about. The first room held large cages; some were empty, but others were filled with animals and monsters, long dead and partially devoured. It seemed as though their bodies had been dragged closer to the edge of the cages, the flesh torn through the bars.
Reno moved forward, stepping over more bodies of former scientists. He had to be on the right track, since the rest of the building didn’t hold nearly as many corpses, animated or not. The state of these scientists told him the monsters probably came from here. Finally, he reached a door, wide open and obviously damaged, that had seemed to have been used for extra security. There was a number lock, like all the doors, but this had two extra deadbolts operated by actual keys.
“Alright, Dr. Creepy, what the fuck were you hiding?” Mako pods lined the wall to his right, the glow bathed the lab in soft green. One of the pods still had a man floating inside. Reno crept towards it, flashlight trained on the dead face. The eyes had the same white coating he saw on the woman from before, staring but not seeing. Reno leaned in for a closer look. It was impossible to tell when the man had died; his skin had the grayish hue, but the Mako prevented the decay evidenced on the other monsters. The identification card by the tank read “Subject #10, Virus Group: Tyrant”
“The fuck....” Reno looked back toward the man’s face and leapt backward. The man was clawing at the glass, gnashing his teeth trying to get to Reno. The body was so emaciated, the skin so thin, it was almost like a skeleton trying to break out of the pod. Reno shivered and backed away. The other pods were empty, a few left open, and one had the glass smashed out. The cards by each read the same thing, a subject number and the virus group, Tyrant.
Reno had just decided to go back for Rude when something hard hit him from behind, knocking him to the ground. A snarling corpse had tripped over some equipment on the floor and crashed into him; he was so intent on the pods he hadn’t heard the shuffling behind him.
“Fuck!” He was barely able to roll over and get his hand around the thing’s throat; it had nearly taken a chunk from his shoulder with its teeth. The thing was surprisingly strong, bearing all its weight down to reach his face with gnashing teeth. Fingernails dug into the sides of his face and pulled at his hair, trying to pull itself closer. Reno’s EMR and flashlight had clattered across the floor when he fell, out of reach of his right hand. His left sunk into the rotting flesh of the monster, inching its way down.
“Shit!” There wasn’t anything in reach to use as a weapon and he couldn’t get to his gun without letting go of the monster, but like hell he was going to die here like this.
Using a move drilled into him by Tseng during his training, he managed to flip the creature over and away from him. He was reaching for his gun when a shot rang out through the lab and the creature fell over dead, one clean shot between the eyes. Reno looked around behind him and found Rude, weapon drawn, looking thoroughly irritated.
“You were supposed to come back to grab me,” he said, voice low and dangerous.
“Was just about to do that, partner.” Reno stood, wiping the gunk off his shaking hand onto his slacks.
“Before or after you got yourself killed, partner?”
“Tch, I was fine. You’re just sore you had to finish the paperwork alone.” Reno gestured towards the pods. “Go check that out, the live one. I’m gonna clear the room.”
“Should have done that to begin with,” Rude grumbled, but followed orders nonetheless. “Tyrant virus? You ever heard of that before?”
“Nope. Seems that’s what we’re looking for, though.” He picked up his EMR and kept it extended. If this is where the experiment started, they were likely to run into more.
“Nowhere in here they’d keep any paper files,” Rude said, looking around.
“I wanna do as quick a sweep as we can; that gunshot probably just told all these assholes where we are.” Reno kicked open a door which turned out to be a broom closet.
Rude had better luck and found a small observation area. It contained a few small desks and a bookshelf of notebooks. A wide window overlooked what appeared to be an operating room. He pulled a notebook down that had “TV #6” written on the front.
Reno also pulled down a similar notebook, this one reading “TV #1”. His eyes became wide as he skimmed through the handwritten notes. “Holy shit… I think you were right about the rabies thing, Rude.”
“We need to bring these books back with us.” Rude started grabbing everything related to “TV” while Reno pulled out his phone.
“Tseng, we got some serious shit on our hands. This psychopath mutated the rabies virus and infected people with it. It made them go way crazy and start eating everything living they could get their hands on.”
“Bring everything you can carry and we’ll see if our team can find a cure. Where can I pick you up?”
“Got some ghoulies in the cafeteria, but Skyview should be clear. We’ll be there in 15.”
“I’m on my way.” Tseng hung up.
Quickly, they gathered the notebooks and set out for the stairwell. They were nearly to the less-secret portion of the labs when a light tip-tap on the linoleum floor caused them to whip around.
Guard hounds. Two large guard hounds, rotting flesh clinging to prominent rib cages, with those same milky, dead eyes, stood in the doorway the two Turks just exited.
“Go,” Reno hissed, shoving Rude ahead of him. One hound lunged through the air and collided with the door he was trying to shut. It bowled over him and Reno landed hard on his right elbow. Pulling his gun with his left hand, he shot the second hound coming through the door, close enough that he didn’t need to aim to make the headshot.
Pain shot through his arm as he rolled over, searching for the first hound. It and Rude were in a kind of wrestling match; Rude had a broken chair leg between the hound’s jaws and was dodging swipes from its large paws as it tried to knock him over.
They were moving around too much for Reno to get a clear shot at the hound. He scrambled to his feet and grabbed his EMR instead. With a yell, he brought his rod down on the beast’s back, but it wouldn’t let up. Sweat dripped down Rude’s face; he was struggling to stop the hound from overpowering him. Reno jammed the tip of his EMR into the hound’s flank and flipped it on. Electric bolts flitted over its body and it emitted a long whine. Rude let go of the wooden chair leg and backed away. Finally, the thing fell to the ground.
“Is it dead?” Rude asked.
“Fuck if I know. I don’t wanna stick around to find out.” Reno kept his injured arm close to his body and flexed his fingers-not broken, probably a fracture. He moved toward the stairwell. “Let’s get out of here. Fuck knows what else is in here.”
Rude gathered the notebooks again and hurried after him. “You’re hurt.”
“Yup.” Reno kept his EMR extended and moved as quick as he could without running, kicking open the door to the stairs. The sound echoed through the concrete walls, mixing with the groaning snarls from the small hoard below them. Except the snarls now sounded much closer than when they first arrived at the lab.
“Of fucking course,” Reno breathed as he looked over the railing. “They broke through the cabinets we put up.”
“Can you see where they are?” Rude started down the steps.
“No, but I don’t think they’re too far down.”
There were seven floors between Hojo’s lab and Skyview Hall. If they could just make it there…
The snarls became louder as they raced down, until they rounded the corner and came face to face with a wall of monsters. Maybe two or three dozen shuffling up the steps, stumbling over each other, and reaching for the warm meal not ten feet from them. Behind them, they heard the growling bark of the not quite dead guard hound.
“Shit,” Rude muttered as he pulled Reno through the nearest door. Reno recognized the floor for Urban Development, an open floor plan with rows of desks and Reeve Tuesti’s office behind the only door in the back corner.
The two tried to force the heavy stairwell door closed, but dead hands reached through the doorway followed by biting heads.
“Fuck. Back here,” Reno tugged at Rude’s jacket as the creatures made their way onto the floor. Reno pulled out his phone and hit the speed dial while they moved toward the office in the back.
“Where are you?” Tseng asked.
“Tuesti’s office. We’re trapped, can’t get to Skyview or anywhere else. Can you pick us up through the big window?”
“Not easily. You’ll have to jump.”
“Anything’s better than getting eaten alive.” Reno hung up.
Reeve’s office was locked.
“Goddamnit!” Reno yelled as he threw his good shoulder against the door. Groans and growls filled the air as the creatures closed in. Gunshots rang through the floor as Rude picked them off one by one, but they both knew he didn’t have enough bullets for the entire herd.
Reno dropped to his knees and pulled his lockpick kit from his jacket pocket. Adrenalin and training allowed him to ignore the searing pain in his right arm. The snarls behind him battled with the pounding in his ears. He bit his lip hard, keeping the panic down so he could focus.
The door's lock clicked open just as Rude’s second clip clicked empty. Reno threw the door open and they dashed into Reeve’s office. The drapes were pulled back along the large window behind his desk. Midgar’s crumbling ruins spread beneath them, but in the sky was a Shinra issue chopper. Tseng.
He was hovering as close to the building as the rotors would let him with the side door opened. Through the windshield, they saw Tseng’s face take on a determined focus at the sight before him: Reno and Rude looking frantic and a slew of animated dead bodies surging in through the doorway. He acted quickly, gesturing for them to get down while he angled the chopper around, nose toward the window.
Reno and Rude dropped to the ground behind Reeve’s desk as Tseng opened fire. The shots from the chopper shattered the window and tore through the bodies behind them. When the gunfire ceased, the two Turks jumped up, not looking at the pile behind them, and leapt through the window as Tseng maneuvered back toward the opening. Once they landed, Tseng wasted no time putting distance between them and HQ.
Reno lay panting and cradling his injured arm while Rude made his way to the cockpit. “Reno’s injured,” he informed Tseng through the headset.
“How bad?”
“Fractured arm, I think.”
“And the data from the lab?”
Rude was silent. In their mad dash to escape, they left the books in the stairwell.
Tseng gave an irritated sigh. “I expect a full debrief from both of you at the office. Then you and Reno can organize a team to retrieve the data. For now, let’s get Reno to the hospital.” He pressed a button on the radio. “Edge General, this is Shinra 1. We’re bringing in another patient. Request clearance to land.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We can’t take any more patients right now. There’s, um, a bit of a situation here.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Frankly, I don’t know, sir. Some sick guy went nuts and started biting people, and then they started biting people... Hospital’s on lockdown until it’s contained.”
“The guy we sent in earlier,” came Reno’s voice. He had grabbed his own headset in the back. “Whatever this shit is is contagious. I ain’t going anywhere near that hospital.”
They flew over the building and saw several people in scrubs and patient gowns in the parking lot. Some were shambling around, their bodies jerking as the security team fired on them. Others were hunched over lifeless bodies, ripping out innards and stuffing their faces.
After a long pause, Tseng finally said, “We’re going to need that data.” He turned the chopper around and headed toward Shinra’s new headquarters.