9 Arriving at the Airport

"We're going to scale the building! Ace, you carry my servers and I'll carry you."

"Can't we just take the stairs?" Ace asked weakly.

Grinning sinisterly, she asked, "What do you think?"

Ace didn't respond and just dragged his feet to put the servers, luggage and ax onto his back instead. He consigned himself to fate and hopped onto Aida's back.

Closing his eyes, holding his breath and squeezing Aida so tightly she was almost strangled, they rapidly rappelled down the building.

Although Ace was fearful, he never doubted Aida's abilities. In this entire process of fighting Enrageds and travelling between buildings, Ace never questioned how or why Aida was capable of doing all these extreme sports and killing in cold blood. The thought never even occurred to him. Instead, he just basked in the presence of his Master.

When they reached the bottom, plenty of Enrageds noticed them and headed their direction.

Aida immediately dumped him and ran to the nearest car, using the axe to break the window. Meanwhile, Ace stumbled along with the heavy weight on his back and clumsily climbed into the car.

Meanwhile, Xiao Ai was teaching Aida how to hotwire the car. Xiao Ai, who spent all her time living on the internet, had accrued a vast amount of random knowledge. She was practically a walking Wikipedia.

As soon as the car engine started, she stepped hard on the gas and zoomed off towards the airport. The ride was by no means smooth. There were many bumps as they hit Enrageds who were running towards the car. After the 20th hit, the front bumper completely fell off. There was no part of the car that didn't have a big dent. They also had to run over uncountable Enrageds while driving on the sidewalk as the roads were blocked by cars.

It was a thrilling experience for Aida as she made it a personal goal to hit every Enraged she saw on the road. She was treating this like a real life version of Grand Theft Auto.

Eventually, it got to the point where Xiao Ai had to remind her Mama that the structural integrity of this small car would not be able to survive many more hits. With that, Aida reluctantly stopped actively targeting the Enrageds.

Based on the few city roads they passed through, it looks like City A has fallen. There were no uninfected people walking along the streets, shattered glass was everywhere and the remaining Enrageds were fighting each other.

After getting out of the city, the roads were fairly quiet and not congested. Most airports were located just outside of the city since the cost of land was too exorbitant and the sound pollution from planes were not welcomed by the city dwellers.

Neither Aida nor Ace were inclined to talk so they tacitly agreed to stay quiet the entire ride.

During this time, Aida reviewed the information she had on this unknown virus. First, it is highly contagious and likely came from either the bay, sea or something that is transmittable by water considering the entire coast line was infected.

Second, the virus has a very short incubation period and symptoms will start showing up almost immediately with fevers, then rashes, and finally hallucinations. Who knows it there were more symptoms that have yet to manifest.

Thirdly, the Enraged still had a presence of mind even while hallucinating. Based on her experience with the rooftop Enraged, it could be seen that while the Enraged were suffering from mad hallucinations and exhibited enmity towards all living creatures, they were still very much capable of complex thought. The only difference is that their thoughts were all focused on the destruction of humanity. Thankfully, their physical abilities were still bound by human limitations, otherwise she couldn't imagine how much more destruction they would cause.

Fourthly, the Enraged don't identify with each other and will begin fighting once in line of sight. This is a good thing, because that means they will actively diminish their own population of infected. However, the problem is that they despite wanting to kill each other, they are also able to prioritize and band together to fight against the uninfected as demonstrated by the time when Ace called out in the lobby. All the Enraged were very unified in their approach towards them.

All in all, the situation was not as dire as people made it out to be. This was, for most purposes, a containable situation. The only part that was concerning is that they still did not have any idea about the origin of this virus, how it was transmitted, and whether there was a cure.

After a short drive, they arrived at the airport. It was a complete transformation from when they were previously here just a few days ago. Most of the buildings and overhangs were covered in clear tarp.

The tarp clearly partitioned the airport into three segments. The first partition contained many people lying side by side on the ground, not moving. The second partition had a group of scientists in white lab coats peering into some telescopes and many other people wearing CDC shirts running around.

In the last area, there was a group of people in full Hazmat suits with some holding guns while others sitting at the table were drawing blood samples. Outside of this room and the tarp, there was a queue of people waiting to enter the airport. All along the cue, there was law enforcement in full gear and hazmat suits monitoring the activity.

As Aida and Ace's car pulled up at the airport, a blonde man in a Hazmat suit pointed a gun at her and threatened, "Both of you, get out of the car now."