Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse
Chapter 254 - 254: Iriga Silence

45 Days Since First Strike — Recon Flight Over Iriga Region

The tiltrotor's engines hummed in steady rhythm, blades slicing through dense, humid air. Clouds drifted over the volcanic ridges of southern Luzon as the aircraft banked southwest. Inside, Thomas sat strapped in beside Phillip and two new recon specialists—Callahan, a quiet sniper with three confirmed kills on Bloomspawn, and Cruz, a sensor tech recruited from the Redsand enclave.

Everyone's eyes were glued to the main display screen mounted to the cabin wall.

"We're five minutes out from the Iriga dead zone," the pilot reported over comms. "No civilian chatter. No birdsong. No power sources pinged. We're flying into a black box."

Thomas leaned forward, glancing at the screen. The map showed a blot of blankness. No EM signals. No heat signatures. Just an unsettling lack of data.

"Keep us steady at 500 feet. Minimize our signature," he ordered.

The pilot acknowledged, tilting the craft into a gentle glide as they crossed over the tree line.

What unfolded beneath them wasn't destruction. It was erasure.

The jungle abruptly ended, replaced by cracked earth and ash. A perfect radius of dead soil extended several kilometers in all directions, like a scorched brand on the landscape. Buildings at the outer edge stood half-melted or collapsed—houses, transmission towers, abandoned vehicles. But there were no bodies. No fires. No insects. Nothing alive.

"Dear God," Phillip whispered.

Cruz adjusted his scanner. "I'm detecting trace radiation. Very low levels. Consistent with tactical fuel-air bombs or containment burns. But no fallout drift. It's like… the zone absorbed everything."

Thomas felt his stomach twist.

"No wind either," Callahan added, peering through the window. "Even the air's dead."

As they circled the outer rim, something flickered near the edge of the screen—a faint blue pulse, barely visible against the grey.

"Hold on," Cruz said. "I've got a signal. Brief, low-band, encrypted. It repeated twice, then went dark."

"Source?" Thomas asked.

"Somewhere near the old geothermal plant. Could be underground."

Thomas looked at Phillip. "Suit up. We're going down."

Same Time — Fort Calinog, Command Room

Lira Morales stood over a map littered with markers. The council sat in tense silence around her—her second-in-command, Ferrer, leaned back with a rifle across his lap, while their comms officer tracked nearby drone telemetry.

"They landed on the ridge east of Iriga. They're moving on foot now," the officer reported. "No contact. Just ambient static and visual confirmation of terrain."

Ferrer exhaled slowly. "They're risking a lot."

"They're proving a point," Lira replied. "We hide behind our walls. They walk into the unknown."

"You think we should follow?"

Lira didn't answer. Her gaze stayed locked on the flickering screen. She wasn't ready to trust Overwatch. But if they came back from this with answers… maybe she'd stop being a skeptic and start being a commander again.

45 Days Since First Strike — Geothermal Plant Ruins

Thomas adjusted his mask and stepped onto the cracked concrete steps of the abandoned power station. His boots left imprints in a thin layer of ash. The wind was unnaturally still.

They moved in silence—Phillip taking point, Cruz watching their six. The interior of the building was scorched. What remained of the walls were blackened by heat, but not one sign of a firefight. Just... abandonment.

"Signal came from the lower levels," Cruz whispered. "There should be a control room sub-basement."

Thomas flicked on his flashlight. The beam cut through the dark, catching bits of glass and steel. They moved in carefully, descending the rusted stairwell.

At the bottom, a blast door hung slightly open.

Thomas froze. "Someone forced this open from the inside."

Phillip knelt beside it. "Signs of welding. Controlled retreat. Not a breach."

They entered the sub-level control room. The terminals were shattered, wires cut clean. A large generator lay gutted in the corner. But on the wall—barely lit—was a message painted in red:

"WE SEALED IT BUT IT BREATHES."

Cruz swallowed hard. "What the hell does that mean?"

Phillip tapped the wall with his knuckle. "This whole facility might've been converted into a bunker. But what did they seal in?"

Thomas stared at the painted words. Then at a nearby hatch leading deeper into the plant.

He didn't like it. But they came here for answers.

"Let's open it," he said.

Same Time — MOA Complex, Command Center

Keplar monitored the recon feed from the safety of the command center. The biometric vitals of Thomas's team pulsed on-screen—heart rates elevated, ambient temperatures climbing.

"They're entering sublevel two," Keplar said to Sato, who leaned in beside him. "Still no radio bounce. It's like the walls are eating the signal."

Sato's eyes narrowed. "We pulled old DOE maps of the area. That station was part of a two-layer geothermal tap into volcanic rock. If something mutated down there—spores, bio-agents—it might've turned the underground into a cocoon."

"Do we warn them?"

Keplar hesitated. "No uplink. They're on their own."

Sublevel Two — Iriga Ruins

The hatch creaked open, revealing a dim hallway littered with broken gear. Biohazard signs, decontamination doors, emergency cots—whatever this was, it had been a last stand. And then something worse.

"Smell that?" Phillip muttered, gagging slightly. "Rot, but chemical too."

Cruz swept the scanner left and right. "No spores. But something else… electromagnetic spikes. Unstable."

Then came the noise.

A low groan—metal on metal? No. Deeper. Like something breathing through fractured lungs.

They rounded the corridor and came upon it.

A single figure.

It was human once—barely. Its flesh was desiccated, twisted by heat and blight. Tubes snaked from its back into a wall-mounted life support rig. Its chest rose faintly. It was alive.

And beside it… a console, blinking faintly, with a green light reading: "CONTAINMENT FAILURE - OVERRIDE LOCKED."

Cruz backed away. "That's not a survivor. That's a host."

Thomas approached slowly. The thing—no, the person—opened one eye.

"Don't…" it rasped. "Don't let it out. We… we locked it… the Bloom… it thinks."

Thomas felt ice crawl down his spine.

Phillip reached for his radio. "We need an evac team with containment gear. Now."

The figure coughed—and died.

The console beeped once.

Then the generator hummed to life.

And something stirred below.

Later That Night — MOA Complex Debriefing

The team made it back just before nightfall. Thomas stood in front of the main table, pale and silent. Cruz had already entered quarantine. Phillip was scrubbing blood from his gloves.

Sato was the first to speak. "Was it alive?"

Thomas nodded. "Barely. Enough to warn us. They sealed something underground."

Keplar's expression darkened. "The Iriga zone wasn't bombed from outside. They did it themselves. From within."

Thomas looked around the table.

"We've been assuming the Bloom is a virus. Or a fungus. Something natural. But that man said it thinks."

"You're suggesting intelligence?" Keplar asked.

Thomas's voice was cold. "I'm suggesting it learns."

A heavy silence fell.

Phillip finally spoke. "So what do we do?"

Thomas exhaled. "We seal the zone. Fortify Fort Calinog. And tell every enclave in Luzon to prepare. We're not dealing with a pandemic anymore."

Sato whispered, "We're dealing with a war."

Outside, the Iriga wind began to blow again for the first time in weeks.

But it wasn't the wind. Not really.

It was the exhale of something that had been waiting. Watching.

And now, waking.

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