Chapter 72: Lockdown Part One

"Shit! This thing's sense of smell has evolved as well." Ai cursed as the banging on the door continued. 

"Will that door hold?" Eiji asked, his face turning slightly pale. 

Ai looked at him and shook her head, saying: "It definitely won't and we can't sit around here, look…"

The bottom of the door was beginning to corrode away. Which was making Ai not want to stay there any longer. She quickly grabbed Eiji's hand and began to run. "Whatever you do, do not stop. We have to let the metal shutters down." 

Ai quickly pulled Eiji along before pushing him through the door and closing a heavy door behind her that sealed off the hallway. She then set up the traps on that door. Right as she finished, she heard the sounds of explosions and more roaring coming from the evolved mutant. She pulled out a shortwave radio and clicked the button on the side. "Mai, don't ask questions, I will explain later but go to the control room and hit the emergency button. Eiji and I are on our way! Everyone is to meet in the control room. We will meet you there." 

"But Ai, the turrets." Mai said as a reminder.

"Already taken care of!" Ai replied before sticking the radio away and saying: "Help me close all the metal doors, we need to do this fast, or we will be locked out of the main section of the base." 

Eiji nodded and the two began running and closing the heavy thick metal doors as fast as they could. When they finally reached the main hallway the lights on the ceiling began to flash red, and a voice came from the overhead speakers. "Lockdown will now commence in Ten… Nine…. Eight…. Seven... Six… Five… Four…. Three… Two… One... Locking Down..."

Ai watched as the shutter closed and let out a depressed sigh. "Let's go, we got a lot to go over."

In the control room, Ai walked in to see all four people sitting and waiting for her around a circular table. "Good you all made it I was worried." 

"Ai what the hell happened why are we on lockdown?" Mai asked, her hands were slightly shaky.

"A mutant evolved while we were observing them and went on a killing spree, killing the other mutants. The issue is, is that an evolved mutant has a little more intellect than a normal mutant and heightened senses from what I just found out now. Its whole body was leaking highly corrosive fluids as well. This is why we are on lockdown. We need to get the camera screens up so we can see where it is. Luckily all bases are equipped with an incinerating system, I just hope it still works. Otherwise, we might not live very long if this thing melts its way through all the emergency shutters and doors." Ai explained as she got up and flicked on the cameras in the control room.

In the main hall pounding on one of the doors was a grotesque creature that looked like a cross between a bear and a wild boar along with a few other animals that Ai could not discern. Its skin was secreting some kind of acid like substance as it continued to ram into the door with its head. The saliva that dripped from its mouth was also highly corrosive and seemed that the mixture of the bodily fluids was creating a kind of super corrosive substance that was easily melting the metal of the door.

"Ahh!" Kuri yelled out in fright but quickly covered her mouth. The image of the mutant really scared her. 

"This thing goes far beyond a mutant, it looks more like a damn monster from a fantasy novel." Yoshi gave a grim smile as he looked at the images on the screen. 

"Sadly this thing is also highly radioactive as well. Everywhere it goes it is contaminating the area." Eiji frowned, luckily the area the mutant was in now was not used for anything but the exit they used was not a radioactive zone. 

"Once it enters the next section of the hall, I will flip the switch. We can only hope that it will work." Ai and the rest could only watch and wait. Mai sat with the two girls, Shogo and Yoshi both standing on each side of them in a protective formation while Eiji and Ai stared at the screen. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding of what each person needed to do. 

"Hey, Ai if this thing does not die, do you have any explosives?" Eiji whispered. 

Ai thought for a moment trying to think if they had anything stronger than C4 since the C4 did not really do much damage to the Mutant. "Nothing that I can think of that would work well… Wait… Go down the hall to the right, there should be one Rpg left and a few more blocks of C4. If we strap the C4 to the shell, we can hope that the explosion of the shell will set off the C4… Actually, let's set it up with a detonator on a string. I am not sure if it will work well but it might... Also, strap on some scrap metal to help deal even more damage..." 

"That may work… I am not an explosive expert so we can only try. I will go get the materials now. Are their detonators in there as well?" Eiji asked.

"Yeah, we will try to rig it up somehow. For scrap metal, the room next to the weapons rooms has a bunch of armor plates from machina, use those. Quickly go." Ai said never taking her eyes off the screen.

Mai saw Eiji running out and she looked at Ai with a bit of worry in her eye. She still did not trust these men at all. "Ai?"

"I had him run to get something that might kill this fucking asshole mutant that is destroying the base we worked so hard to acquire. " Ai was gritting her teeth as she watched the large metal shutter door slowly starting to break open up under the continuous raming from the mutant.

The corrosive nature of the fluid coming out of it was weakening the metal with each hit, allowing the Mutant to make quick work of the metal shutter. Until finally the door gave way allowing the mutant into the next section of the hallway. Ai looked at the button for that hallway and muttered: "I guess it is now or never!"

***

If you are not reading this at [W.e.b.n.o.v.e.l .c.o.m.], then the content you're reading is stolen! Please support the author at [w.w.w.w.e.b.n.o.v.e.l.c.o.m./.b.o.o.k./ito-ai-a-new-dawn_17791889705928505] remove periods for address since some sites monitor warnings like this.