Zombie Apocalypse: Creation

After digging through all of the drawers and possible places to hide things, the cameraman could only find a bunch of useless instruction manuals.

The only remotely unique thing was a credit card sandwiched right between the driver's seat.

"Nothing inside." The cameraman murmured as he stepped back out to the metro platform.

All the other soldiers looked a little down, but they didn't say anything as they began heading back to the split end.

After arriving at the split end, they began to head down the other path they hadn't gone to earlier.

Just as they were about to arrive at a short staircase, a room tag caught their attention.

"Security room. That's exactly what we needed."

The entire squad immediately began heading towards the security room before being stopped by a reinforced steel door.

"How are we getting inside?"

The front soldier asked after turning the doorknob, only to hear a clunk sound.

"Look around. Maybe there is a key."

After searching the nearby area for almost five minutes, all ten of them returned empty-handed.

With a decision in front of him, the cameraman made his decision as he pulled out a grenade.

"Strap it on the door."

"Corporal, you sure this is going to work?"

"I'm sure of it."

The front soldier quickly attached it to the doorknob, and a long string quickly attached it to the pin.

Meanwhile, the other soldiers and the cameraman had already moved all the way to the back, just far enough to have the string in hand.

After the front soldier ran back to them, they immediately pulled the string and covered their ears.

"Bang!"

As the explosion went off, the reinforced steel door was still intact, with only a small dent and burnt mark on the outer edges.

However, the doorframe and the wall had been severely damaged, leaving a gap just enough for the lock to be useless.

"You six, watch outside. You three, come with me."

The cameraman quickly headed inside, showing a room that had a bunch of CCTV inside.

Unfortunately, much to their disappointment, there was no power, which meant they couldn't use the machines at all.

They couldn't find any footage to determine what happened before and after the outbreak in the metro.

However, they continued searching as the cameraman and the other four soldiers continued going through all the different drawers.

After almost a ten-minute search, they returned one empty-handed, as there were zero live recordings downloaded on a hard drive.

"Commander, we could bring this computer up to check the footage directly, " one of the soldiers suggested.

"Perfect. Let's just do that and bring it up."

Two of the soldiers quickly began to gently carry the computer in their arms as they left the room.

The other soldiers didn't question it as they covered in the front, heading all the way to the metro entrance before the footage ended.

---

"That's the first piece of record we have of the metro," Mingxu stated as he closed the video.

"Where's the computer in the video?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"It's actually this laptop... We had a computer-savvy person modify it since it couldn't start."

"Was there any footage in this laptop then?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

"Most of the footage is erased or corrupted, but the only footage that survived is a video that showed inside the security room."

After a few clicks by Mingxu, another video popped up.

To Xiaoyun's surprise, the video showed a person in a security guard outfit sitting inside the security room.

With the time and date labeled on the top right, it was the afternoon of the outbreak.

The various CCTV screens before the security guard showed a common word that caught Xiaoyun's attention.

All of the metro trains were heading towards Foshan, seemingly as if the metro station in Zhaoqing was being completely abandoned.

Not a single passenger was on the platform, with every single screen showing no one walking pass at all.

As the video ended, Xiaoyun replayed the video again, trying to get more clues.

However, after watching it three separate times, there wasn't much that stood out.

The only conclusion that Xiaoyun could think of is just as anyone in Yezi's position would have reacted.

"Mingxu, why do you think the metro station in Zhaoqing isn't as safe as Yezi thought?" Xiaoyun curiously asked.

A short came out before Mingxu turned the laptop back on and replayed the video again.

"Xiaoyun, look at this detail right here."

Within a millisecond of pause right near the end of the video, the security guard held a small piece of paper in hand.

Due to the blurriness of the video, there was no way to tell what it was written about besides the familiar color that matched a train ticket.

"What does that have to do with Zhaoqing being abandoned or not? Isn't this just a train ticket?"

"Yes, but one of the soldiers from Zhaoqing told me that isn't just any training.

It's a high-speed rail from Zhaoqing that goes all the way to Guangzhou. That soldier also told me that all the trains were going to Taishan next."

Xiaoyun sat in silence as he couldn't really connect any of the puzzles that Mingxu had just stated.

"What does this have to do with the metro being abandoned or not?"

"Xiaoyun, think about the time."

After a minute of silence, Xiaoyun suddenly let out a sound.

"Ah! Wait, the outbreak was already breaking out in the afternoon... That high-speed rail ticket could never reach Taishan."

"Exactly. And I combined it with the fact that a single metro train so happened to remain in the station.

The two pieces combined just seem too fishy to be fully abandoned. It was clear something was hiding inside the metro."

Mingxu paused for a second, then continued.

"Why would no one go inside the metro when the outbreak happened? All the other cities have people running into the metro as an escape.

Something has to have been hiding inside the metro tunnels, preventing that train from leaving."

Xiaoyun fell into silence as he understood the angle from which Mingxu was coming.

However, at the same time, he couldn't really blame Yezi for thinking that the metro was emptied with little or no zombies.

"Did you tell this to Yezi?" Xiaoyun quietly asked.

"I did. But he thought all my evidence was just a coincidence and too cautious.

We sent another squad to check down the metro tunnel, which turned out to be empty as well.

But they could only check a tenth of it before heading back, calling it safe when it——"

"That wouldn't make a difference."

Ningjing suddenly interrupted, arguing against her own husband as she took out a map of the metro station.

"Your soldiers were attacked just after they walked past the entrance. They were attacked right here in the split end from the footage."

As Ningjing pointed it out on the map, Mingxu fell into silence.

"It is very unlikely for them to be traveling from other metro stations, considering the distance and time.

Nor would it make sense that zombies just randomly wander into the metro, considering the numbers the fallen soldiers reported——"

"Then what other reasons could there be?"

Mingxu questioned back as he stood up and looked over to Ningjing with frustration in his face.

"I... I don't know. But it can't be from the other metro tunnels."

"You can't just eliminate a possible reasoning with a random woman's intuition——"

"Enough. It doesn't matter if the zombies come from the other metro station or not.

The problem is how to solve it. Can you two call Tan Pi and Bai Bing back?"

The two quickly forgot their grudges as they agreed to Xiaoyun's order and left the tent.

Xiaoyun was now all alone inside the tent, sitting before the metro map on the table.

Deep inside, he had already removed the blame against Yezi, especially after seeing all the 'circumstantial' evidence.

It was simply a tactical mistake by Yezi wanting to hurry up and take Zhaoqing to prove against Yiming.

Besides that, the footage left his mind a little confused, as he remembered that most of the metro trains weren't in Foshan stations either.

He could vividly remember most of the platforms and the underground tunnels, which barely had any trains of their own.

More importantly, he could also remember a data report from the past stating that most of Guangzhou's metro was also empty.

"Where did they all go?"

Xiaoyun wondered, as his mind couldn't think of a reason for them to be moved and gathered into an unknown area.

However, a location suddenly popped into his mind from the security room footage.

"Are all those metro trains in Taishan...?"

Just as Xiaoyun felt he was onto something, the tent curtain was opened. But to his surprise, it wasn't the four Colonels.

Instead, it was two cloaked figures standing in silence, their face hidden in darkness.

"Who are you two?"