Variant Strain

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When one says that a neighborhood has thousands of people living there, it is actually difficult to really visualize it. Peter knew, in his head, that Forest Hills had at least that many people living in it. Now that he was actually approaching the intersection that the police station had once stood, he didn't have to imagine.

What he noticed first was that several of the buildings were badly damaged. Gaping holes in the surrounding buildings that he was reasonably certain were done by tanks. The police station itself was simply gone, save for some rubble. Pre-made ten-foot high cement barricades closed off the street with the gaps sealed with some sort of messily applied quick-setting riot-foam-like material. There were tanks and APCs that had heavy machine guns mounted on rough turrets serving as hard points on the barricade, but it looked barely adequate.

From his vantage point atop a nearby building, just beyond the barricade were those thousands of former inhabitants of Forest Hills. The sheer mass of near humanoid figures pressing up against barricade was terrifying in their numbers. He could see spots where infected Walkers had pretty much been squeezed to a pulp by the weight of numbers behind them pushing and shoving forward.

But that wasn't happening now. They were all standing in place with a certain obvious unity of purpose. It was directed action again. There was some sort of hive nearby coordinating them.

All of them.

The chaos on the near side of the barricade was much worse. The tanks and guns did what they could, but as he watched their movements, Cain whispered that it was clear that they were pulling out. The radio traffic said as much. No one expected to stand their ground.

Which didn't make sense to Peter. Cain's combat knowledge and enough hours of the History channel pointed out that they were pulling out of a fortified position. Granted the sheer press of bodies was certain to overwhelm them, but where could they possibly retreat to that was going to be any better? Worse than that, if this point was where the military personnel were gathering to pull out from, why would the infected be concentrating themselves here as well? Wouldn't it make more sense to break out where the military presence had already been pulled away?

None of the radio chatter matched up with that scenario. At the rest of the key points around Forest Hills that they had managed to set barricades at, there were no infected. Why were they all here, then?

The surrounding neighborhoods had evacuation orders and the Thunderbolts or the Marines, or whoever else was down there would slow the advance as best they could. The majority of the military men wore fatigues, but Peter could see there were a large contingent of men in the bright yellow bio hazard uniforms. It would be a fighting retreat, but a retreat nonetheless. Peter didn't want to think about the survival chances of anyone stuck in the high rise apartment building he was currently resting on.

Peter thought about the almost but not quite abandoned neighborhood they'd just driven through. He didn't want to consider that those people were likely to end up getting added to the mass below.

None of that made what he was trying to do any easier.

Aunt May's car had been abandoned on Austin Street, right next to a Starbucks, around a block before the barricade. Whatever shrapnel from the helicopter crash had hit the car, hadn't just made their tire flat. Some of it had apparently torn through the bottom of the gas tank. Peter didn't want to think what that could've done if it had hit the car just a bit higher.

Peter should have been able to track Anna, Aunt May, Gwen and MJ by scent. He could still catch threads of their scent in the air, but there was just so much to filter out now that it was almost impossible to pick them out. Trying to spot them visually, wasn't helping much either, since it appeared that some evacuees ended up heading towards the barricade rather than away and now the Marines were trying to organize those people to include them in the retreat.

And if they don't get a move on, they're all dead, Cain noted cynically. In fact, I'm not sure what the infected are waiting for. They should be able to climb the barricade already. Hell, Hunters can jump that high without even trying.

Maybe they want to fight fair. Cletus quipped. Y'know... sportsman-like. Give their lunch a fighting chance.

If they aren't attacking then we'd better take advantage while we can. Let's just find everyone and find our contact so we can leave, Donna's voice pressed.

Even if we do find 'em, I don't think we're gonna find our escort out anymore. Cletus pointed out, bringing up memories of the fallen helicopters. This was followed up by their attention being pulled towards the red-hazed figures circling the air around the infected horde.

Cain reported, With Chariot Three down, the Vultures have air superiority at the moment. They've got inbound attack choppers, but their ETA is ten minutes from now.

That would be a lifetime if the infected charged.

So how does one find another person when they get separated from them?

There's always the obvious way, Donna pointed out.

Follow their scent trail, right? Cletus asked.

An image of tendrils flicking and dancing across the touchscreen of his phone came to mind and he was dialing MJ's phone.

... or there's that, Cletus chuckled.

Peter didn't even have time to pull the phone out of his hand, before the phone had done a half-ring and he sort of half-caught a snatch of her ringtone sound from the noises below. It then cut off abruptly. Even though he didn't have the phone out physically, he seemed to be able to hear her clearly.

"Peter! Where are you? Are you okay?" MJ's voice was concerned, but there was also a great deal of noise in the background. They were down in the thick of the crowd of soldiers, he was certain of it.

He wasn't sure how it worked with the phone inside him still, but he spoke aloud while keeping his hand hovering close to his ear, "I'm fine. How are you guys? I saw the car."

"We're all okay. We got to the soldiers, but they're all kind of busy." MJ breathed. He could hear her voice become muffled and adding, "It's Peter."

There were more scuffling noises and suddenly he could hear Aunt May's half-hysterical voice through the phone, "Peter! Oh, God. Peter! Are you alright? How did you get away from the--"

"I'm fine Aunt May. A couple of bumps and bruises. Nothing major. I got very lucky."

"How did you even survive?" She asked hurriedly, her voice still urgent. Peter frowned slightly as he realized he was hearing a small echo.

He scanned the mess below him, and he recited back the lie he'd come up with while making his way back. "Something shot the vulture down while it was trying to carry me off. I was right over a building at the time. I only fell around five feet. It took me longer to get down the stair--" "

"Nevermind." She interrupted his story with a sharp question, "Where are you?! We'll come get--"

"Aunt May, you're with the soldiers already, right?" He asked. He was getting his own voice echoing back slightly. Only he was certain it wasn't an echo. He could hear them down there... as well as hearing his own voice coming from her cellphone speakers filtering through the noise.

It was like when he'd filled himself with MJ's scent back in Manhattan. It had let him cut through all the extraneous sensory input. There was no way to guess at how much delay the audio on the cellphone was giving him versus what he could actually hear of them, so he thought it was useless to try and use those to make a guess at how far they were from him from that basis, but he'd underestimated the acuteness of his own senses before.

"Yes, we are." She said and he cut in before she could say anything else.

"Then you guys are already okay. I'll make my way to you." Peter said as gently as he could.

There. Cain barked in his mind and his eyes focused sharply on a small cluster of people in the middle of an open park-like area that was being used as a staging area. They were in the middle of a larger group of civilians in the middle of the busily rushing soldiers.

He breathed a sigh of relief as he realized they seemed okay. MJ was helping hold up Anna who he noticed had a bandage over her ear. Close by, Gwen had her shotgun cradled close to her and she seemed to be hugging someone wearing fatigues and a flak jacket. He refocused his eyes closer and realized with a start that it was actually George Stacy.

While he was distracted, May's voice began to rise sharply once more, "Peter, there's no telling--"

"Aunt May," He said with a sigh, gently but firmly cutting her off, "I'm fine. Just a little banged up. They haven't even invalidated my warranty. I can make my way to you."

"But--" She tried to press, but he didn't allow her to.

"I love you, Aunt May. I'm going to be fine." He continued.

There were more muffled voices and he could overhear George telling his aunt, "Peter's tough and smart. If he says he's going to be fine, he will be."

"But he's so... I mean... he's just a boy..." May said, her voice trailing off helplessly.

George's tone projected confidence. "He's faced these things down with his bare hands, May."

There was an even more muffled exclamation of, "He what?"

"He can handle it. Let me talk to him real fast, though?"

There were more shuffling noises and Peter watched an obviously reluctant Aunt May hand the phone to George. "Hey, Peter." The man's voice was gruff. Obviously tired, but there was genuine affection in it.

"Hey, Officer Stacy. I'm glad you're okay." Peter couldn't keep the profound relief he was feeling out of his voice. Intellectually he had known the man had been okay. But he'd only known that from Hank, who hadn't exactly been entirely trustworthy.

George replied in the same tone, "Same here. Now, where are you?"

"Not really sure. I kind of see the soldiers from where I am." Peter wasn't even lying that time, which just made it simple.

George heaved a sigh of relief, "Good. That's good. So just get to the soldiers. It looks like they're pulling all the civilians and civilian transports to the center of the formation. They ought to bring you right to us."

"Yes, sir." Peter replied, not entirely certain if that was what he would be doing.

"Be careful, alright? Don't take any unnecessary risks, got it?" George admonished him.

"Yes, sir." He replied, mentally crossing his fingers while Cletus laughed uproariously in his mind.

"You don't want your poor Aunt worrying about you anymore than she has to." He continued. "Just... keep your head about you and be sensible."

"Yes, sir." He replied promptly.

"I'm handing you back to your Aunt." He paused for a moment and added with a small laugh, "Good job so far, tho, kiddo. Ever consider a career in law enforcement?"

He laughed back, only having to force it a little. A flash of memory ran through his head of walking a beat in a freshly starched police uniform that felt vaguely connected to Cain.

Shuffling noises.

A somewhat more mollified May spoke, "Hurry, Peter. We're all worried about you."

"Yes, Aunt May."

"You're sure you're not hurt?" She insisted.

"Not badly enough to matter." He replied glibly. "I'm fine, Aunt May. You guys be careful. I'll be back with you before you know it."

"George has been with the soldiers for a few days and seems alright. He said he'll watch out for us." She replied.

Peter felt something unclench in his chest at that. He knew the George Stacy would watch out for them, but it felt different to actually be told.

And why, pray tell, do you think they can't take care of themselves? Donna asked mildly.

Because only Gwen has any firearms training. Cain replied blandly. Them being with Detective Stacy and in the middle of a group of soldiers is the safest place for them to be in.

Peter considered doing exactly as he'd told George Stacy and dropping down to ground level a block from their position and allowing the soldiers to assume he was another refugee so he could join them.

"Peter, are you sure you're alright?" Aunt May asked in the sudden silence over the phone.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. Sorry. Got distracted. I promise I'll be careful and make my way to you as soon as I can." Peter replied.

She sighed deeply, "You can't expect me not to worry, Peter." Her voice hardened, "And I want to hear some more about you facing down these things with your bare hands."

"Er... um... something to look forward to?" He replied weakly.

He could imagine her rolling her eyes. There was amusement in her tone as she replied, "Here, I'm passing you back to MJ."

"Hey, Tiger." She said and he could tell she was smiling.

"Hey. Sorry I worried you." He replied back lamely.

"I wasn't worried." She paused then added, "Much. You are okay, right?"

"I am. Everything will be fine, MJ."

He could almost see her eyes narrow even from the distance. "You're planning on making sure it turns out fine, right?"

"Uh... something like that."

It was her turn to sigh noisily. "Well, your Aunt May already told you to be careful, so I'm not going to repeat it, so take it as unsaid, okay?"

"Yes, dear." He quipped.

Anna's muffled voice sounded, "Oh, I heard that. Got him trained already. Good girl!"

It surprised him that his eyesight was good enough to catch her blush at that distance, he even could tell MJ wasn't displeased. "Aunt Anna!" She groaned with good-natured exasperation.

Peter couldn't help but smile.

"You'll hurry back to me?" MJ asked, her voice suddenly urgent. There was a significant pause as she added, "As soon as you can?"

From her tone, he could tell that she already knew he was planning on doing something his aunt would not approve of. He should have been surprised that she could have guessed on what his actions would be.

You aren't exactly all that complex, His own voice drawled sarcastically.

She just got under his skin... in a sort of good, if slightly disturbing kind of way.

"I will." He replied simply.

He noticed Anna turn away briefly to say something to May. In that distracted moment, MJ hurriedly whispered, "I love you." Then hung up.

Y'all already know my thoughts on this subject. Cletus drawled and Peter gave him the mental equivalent of a glare.

We should go join them, Donna murmured.

That barricade may as well be a waist high fence, Cain replied, The only reason the infected haven't simply gone over it and started swamping those soldiers is because the Hive's holding them back.

There was a mental pause as they all absorbed this thought and realized the obvious as well. The infected were gathered in this area because this was where the Hive was.

Cain continued, When it decides to go on the offensive, how well do you think we're going to be able to fight them off surrounded by panicking, screaming civilians and soldiers who are just as likely to shoot us as the infected? Those boys down there look awful twitchy.

Okay, you may have a point. Donna admitted sourly.

We'd be safer down there. Connors whispered, his flat voice faintly worried.

No, we wouldn't. Cain snapped, We'd be safer leaving.

We can't just leave. Donna argued back.

Y'know... there's an easy way to keep everyone safe so we can go join up with 'em, Cletus drawled and their collective attention drifted towards the mass of infected.

Peter gaze swept across the thousands of Walkers, the half-dozen or so Vultures in the air. and the dozens of Hunters scattered among the Walkers and shuddered.

You want us to kill all of them. Peter thought incredulously.

Kill and eat. Cletus corrected him.

That's insane!

It makes sense, Donna pointed out. Easiest way to make sure everyone is safe is to eliminate the problem.

Eliminate th-- Peter's thoughts sputtered to a halt and he said out loud, "Did you see how many of them there are?!"

Cletus laughed, Okay, you've got a point.

Thank yo--

Probably give ourselves a belly-ache tryin' to swallow that much. Cletus gleefully continued. So we'll do it a bite at a time. Just pace ourselves, y'know?

That wasn't the point. Peter thought sourly back, glaring down at the mass of infected wishing they would all just go away.

We don't need to kill and eat all of them. Just the Hive. Cain said pointedly.

Peter blinked as he came to the same obvious conclusion. Their coordination falls apart without a Hive. They'll still be dangerous as a matter of sheer numbers, but that would be a lot simpler than trying to deal with them all under the command of a single coordinating mind.

Just one problem with that plan, son, Cletus drawled.

They wouldn't see the Hive. None of the nearby buildings had the thick layer of viral matting that he'd come to associate with them. The street and part of the barricade was covered in the reddish, fleshy material, but nothing stood out to any of his senses as the Hive. In fact, his sense of smell kept insisting the Hive scent seemed to be all around them. As though he were inside a Hive, but he was out in the open. That couldn't possibly be right.

So we still gotta kill everything to make real sure we get it. Cletus concluded cheerfully.

Peter sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face. The soldiers continued their work and he simply stared down at the horde, searching desperately for inspiration. There was that trick the dog had shown him he could do. The same move that he'd used the other day on a Hunter. Fall on them from a height, flare out the red haze in a solid wall of weird gravitic effects and essentially pulp everything beneath him.

Except the most he'd managed with the trick to date, even assuming he could do it again, was a circle around twenty feet in diameter. And it was only really fatal within a much closer radius than that. Further out it just knocked things over.

He took a deep breath, trying to pinpoint the Hive by scent, but the air was so saturated with Living Hydra scents that it proved impossible. He had that same, heavy, oppressive scent in the air that reminded him a little of the Sandoval Deli hive, but there were strange, unfamiliar undercurrents to it. It was strong enough for him to be certain that it really was a living Hive. He wasn't sure how the Thunderbolts, experts that they allegedly were, could have missed it.

Connors voice murmured, Only Middletown ever came close to the speed of infection that we've seen here. This entire situation is outside of anyone's experience.

Peter silently added that obviously it was because Jessica had been driving both infections. He sighed and tried to concentrate. What scents he could get from where the police station had agreed with the Thunderbolts own assessment of the pile of rubble. That Hive was dead.

Forest Hills was just as dead. If he didn't want the rest of Queens... or New York... to end up the same way, he had to find the live one.

His gaze swept over the crowd once more. He could feel the tick and whir of new machinery in his mind catalog and assess every single Infected that his eye passed over. He'd always been good with numbers, but not like this. There was an element of how he imagined Hank thought. A cold, dispassionate assessment of numbers. Mathematical analysis. Exponential spread patterns. Historical data. Current troop deployments. If this horde of infected was allowed to get past the barricades, all of Queens would be infected within three days. Complete saturation. That wasn't even taking into account how many were in Manhattan.

Peter stopped at that thought. Hank's most pessimistic analysis hadn't even considered the possibility that all of Forest Hills could have been converted to mobile infected. He'd expected the majority of the biomass would have ended up incorporated into Hive flesh, not as Walkers. This was supposed to have been the diversion.

Hank had been expecting Manhattan to have been ground zero. If this was the diversion...

A flicker of Hank's memories of Middletown ran through his mind. Viral matting spattered on the buildings. Unmoving bodies in the thousands littered the streets all connected by threads of thin spun infected flesh and nervous tissue. Their eyes were all open, sightless and staring. He blinked and every other eye that he could see blinked with him at the precise same moment as something huge and terrible rose in the distance.

Peter's stomach clenched. Not even his perfect muscle control could keep the sudden trembling in his hands away.

He had to find some way to stop them all.

Almost as if in answer to his unspoken thought, the mass of infected stirred and a ten foot wide path opened up. It was almost like a terrifyingly organic version of the parting of the Red Sea from the Ten Commandments.

Uncle Ben had loved that movie. He clamped down hard on the twinge and forced himself to keep his attention on the matter at hand.

The path was straight down the street. Running all the way from the barricade where a tank was parked, back to a large van that had once been white, but was covered in the rest brown and reddish black of viral matting.

The side of the van opened, revealing an immensely obese figure. Peter wasn't sure how it had gotten into the van in the first place, but quickly realized that it had swollen to its current size in there. If it had arms and legs, neither were visible. All that could be seen of it was the head and stomach pushed out through the open door. The tremendous gut dangling almost all the way to the street and the entire vehicle tilting dangerously.

Its oversized face, bigger than even a Rhino's head, was moon-like and sported a multitude of chins. It's cheeks seemed to be spread out, melding back into the viral matting behind it. Only a few tufts of greasy black hair still showed on the nearly bald pate and it had no neck. Peter could see it's eyes were filmed white with cataracts.

It's mouth opened and just seemed to keep opening, stretching wide, practically all the way to its almost invisible ears. Then the bottom jaw suddenly cracked open, unfolding in a familiar fashion. Exactly the way Ed Whelan's had to regurgitate the rat. Exactly as the dog's had when it spit out Cain and Donna.

He had to wonder if this thing would have been Ed Whelan's final fate, if things had gone differently.

The split, however, didn't stop at the jaw. The now bifurcated jaw seemed to unzip the rest of its grossly obese torso open, tautly bulging flesh shrank away from the gaping reddish black maw that opened along an almost invisible seam down its oversized stomach.

The black cavity stretching from the top of its mouth all the way down to where Peter could only assume was the crotch was disturbing enough. But then a bilious yellow sac bulged out of the opening. The thing had a hive pustule swelling out of the already oversized gut, which seemed to be stretching even larger to accommodate the tremendously sized yellowish green membranous sack that only seemed to just barely maintain its cohesion.

Peter swallowed hard, fighting to keep the taste of bile rising. Even with all the disgusting things he'd seen since this had begun, this was rapidly climbing up the charts.

The pustule quivered and something, some shadowy humanoid figure within the yellow-green fluid shifted. It burst, splattering all the nearby infected with the viscous fluid. The thin layer of viral matting on the street waved feeding tendrils frantically to reabsorb it, but an immense, terrifyingly familiar figure tore its way free of the clinging remnants of the pustule.

Syetsevich, Connors gasped, the faint stirring of emotion in his voice.

Rhino. Cain agreed. That's what they were waiting for.

The Rhino straightened up and rotated its head slowly, taking the time as though it were cracking the bones in its neck.

It'll tear the barricade apart. Lead the charge. Cain continued dryly, The Hunters flanking it? Support. Bodyguards. It's the spearhead. The rest of the Hunters are probably going to take out any priority targets among the military there. Then the Walkers come in and swamp everything in bodies.

The obese thing seemed to sigh with satisfaction as its body began to fold shut once more. It shuddered and pulled its gut back into the van with a visible effort. Peter watched the grossly swollen flesh stretch even tighter as it was pulled back right before the door slid shut. Peter licked suddenly dry lips as he realized what he was looking at.

"That's a Hive." He gasped aloud.

Connors whispered, It should be impossible. A Hive that size couldn't possibly maintain intelligence. The smallest we've ever encountered was at least the size of a house. No infected of that size should be able to coordinate this many infected, much less retain the kind of intelligen--

Cletus made a pointed mental 'Ahem' noise.

Point taken, Connors replied just as the van shuddered and began to back up into the crowd of infected, that moved as one to surround it. It was still taller than they were, so it was easily visible,

It's mobile. Cain growled. This just keeps getting better.

Cain's unspoken shift in attention pulled his eyes up to the Vultures who it appeared weren't just circling at random. They were flying in formation around the van. Not all of them, but it most of them were keeping it up.

So... stop the Rhino with Hunter bodyguards before it breaks through the barricade. Then also kill a mobile Hive before the infected get to the Soldiers.

No pressure, Cletus drawled cheerfully.

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