Carrion Virus (Book 2): The Athena Protocol by M.W. Duncan Page A

calm, so warm and caring, despite his uniform, despite the weapons strapped to his body, despite the horrors of the city. It now seemed things were taking their toll. Inevitable she supposed, but she had hoped it wouldn’t happen to this soldier.
    The snow lessened for a moment, the veil of white becoming more permeable. Dylan reached into his vest, and pulled a flare free.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Surviving.”
    “Dylan, no.”
    He struck it alight, launched the illumination over the street, his aim good. It landed amongst the looters, and alerted the infected. A charge erupted and those beasts fell upon looters with familiar efficiency. Gemma filmed it all.
    “Move,” ordered Dylan.
    The three ran through the snow drifts, up the street in the direction the infected came. Screams and cries haunted their flight, but no pursuit came. Gemma did not look back, instead willed herself forward. She pushed her burning legs harder, drawing level with Dylan. George was a short way behind, his heavy footfalls crunching through the snow.
    Dylan had little sense of Aberdeen, where Gemma knew the city well. They entered Union Street, the arterial passage that ran through the heart of Aberdeen. It was a dark, ghost-land filled with snow.
    “This way,” she called out and set off again.
    Vehicles had trampled the snow to slush. It made for easier going. The three of them ran up the middle of the road, past cars hidden in the white depth. They rounded a corner and finally Marishcal College came into sight. The gothic, granite-fronted building seemed a fortress. They wasted no time in dashing toward the protection it would offer.
    “What were you thinking, Dyla n ? ”
    “Move, unless you want to stay out here and die.”
    “But you let those people die.”
    He did not halt his run. “I have my orders.”
    “I thought you were in the business of saving people.”
    “They were out robbing a bar. They broke curfew.”
    “They didn’t have to die.”
    “It was us or them.”
    “What’s going on with you?”
    He kept running.
    “Hey! I’m talking to you.” Gemma grabbed his arm and hauled him to a stop. He turned on her, opened his mouth to speak. Before a word came out Dylan flew backwards, thrown off his feet by an invisible force. He landed five feet away, his chest ripped open, exposing broken ribs and pulped innards.
    “Sniper! Get down.”
    Hands encircled her waist and pulled her back. Where she stood a moment before, a huge spurt of snow erupted. George pulled her further away, to a low wall in the shadows of a building adjacent to Marischal College.
    Gemma could not master herself and screams came, her eyes fixed on the wreckage of Dylan. She pushed her face into the snow, letting the ice numb her hot tears of anger. They had been so close, so close. Now they were about to be killed by a trigger-happy soldier.
    George slunk down to his belly and snaked around the short wall. He stretched out and pulled the rifle free from Dylan’s body then wriggled back.
    “What are you doing?”
    “We need to let them know that we’re not infected. Look.” He indicated with a nod of his head toward the plaza before the entrance of the building. Breaking the blanket of snow, here and there, limbs protruded like broken gravestones fighting against the decay of time.
    “They’re shooting first and asking questions later.”
    George pulled open his jacket and slipped out of it. He pulled off the white vest he wore under his jumper, wrapping it on the end of the rifle. George held the weapon by the stock and waved it past the cover of the wall and into the open where the sniper was no doubt watching, waiting for a clean shot.
    This is crazy, thought Gemma. Part of her wanted to run back the way she came. The rest demanded inaction and so she lay in the snow, watching the person she had become companion to through circumstance.
    “Gemma, look.”
    A five-man squad of soldiers, kitted out in winter camouflage moved toward