The salvager from the town, Joe, moved over to the abandoned raft. He checked the compressor's fuel tank. "Yep, she's dry. We can see if Tinsdale would part with a compressor. Considerin' what ya'll have done for us that won't be no nevermind." He gathered the two shotguns, looking dubious at the fact that this firepower was useless against... whatever took the scavengers.

Conscious that his thermal would not penetrate water, Trask checked the building and surrounding trees and ruins poking above the dark surface. The humid air was still cool from the night, but there were no observable hot spots. He leaned in and checked the floor, what he could see of it. Thermal and low-light did not reveal any recent footprints of either the missing salvagers or anything else. It looked like the air hose stretched towards a propped-open fire door. However, he could visually see scuffmarks on the floor and in the thick layer of dust covering it that looked new.

Once inside they determined the floor was clear. The air hose led to a set of fire stairs, then down into the water. Trask could tell that one set of dive boot prints went from the entry to the stairs and down and did not come out. That would be one of the salvagers. He did not find tracks from the second salvager. But he did see something disturbing. A set of bare footprints led out from the water, dragging something up. Then something was set down, and the tracks continued out the window, then back to the stairs. However, the bare footprints did not go back down into the water but went up the stairs carrying something heavy. Whoever it was was obviously soaking, as was his burden.

Looking down the stairwell they could see the surface of the black water a few feet below them. The dark stairs above them seemed to be largely unblocked until it got to the top a few floors above.

Trask pointed out the trail to the others before asking "Should I pull the hose up ?"


-

Peter wasn't considered with a compressor at the moment, so didn't pay much mind to the 'offer' made. He focused on what lay ahead, just giving a small dismissive wave to the man. He moved slowly and carefully, looking around and staying alert.

He glanced at Trask and looked where they had looked. He frowned but then shook his head. <small>"Personally, I say leave it for now." He glanced back, still keeping his voice quiet, "We are agreed to head upstairs?"

The hose definitely led down into the water. Instead of risking that, they followed the tracks in the thick concrete dust that led from downstairs under the water to above on the fire stairs.

They were on the 2nd floor, as the Ground floor was underwater. They cautiously reached the 3rd floor landing. The tracks of whoever it was and whatever they were dragging along led to a closed reinforced steel door marked, "SURGICAL SUITES - AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY". There was a card reader, keypad and card lock, but that would all seem defunct without power.

Above the stairs continued to ascend into darkness, at least for another floor.

Peter slowed to a quiet stop. The tracks lead in to...he grimaced as he saw the sign. In a post apocalyptic world full of monsters, he imagined nothing but grisly horror in a Surgical Suite. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

He moved to the doors and glanced back at his comrades, before then trying to quietly and carefully open one of them.

  Chricton followed quietly. He had the Hellstrome SAW out and ready. His rail gun was slung on his back. He had two of his pistols strapped on as back ups. His plasma pistol and one of his normal pistols. More than willing to lend Smoker or anyone else any of the guns except the HI ones. When they got to the door he shuddered. This is not a good spot to have been brought. And this whole ward could be packed shoulder to shoulder with the bloats.

Trask continued to do a sensor sweep every now and then as he had his rifle at his shoulder. They seemed to be living out some zombie movie..... he thought.


-

Thermal and low-light sensors did not reveal anything, except for a boot that looked like it might have belonged to one of the salvagers as it was not covered in dust. IF someone had walked up and pulled the door open it was long enough ago their heat was no longer on the handle.

The lock was broken or non-functional and the door swung open. It was obvious this floor was part of the hospital's ICU, the rest being on the ground floor and underwater. The stairwell led was in the SW corner of the building. Off to the right along the S wall was the bank of non-functional elevators. The SE corner off to their right had completely collapsed into a jumble of ferro-concrete, drywall, cinderblocks, bent piping and broken plastic conduits, acoustic tiles and other wreckage.

The entire floor was dark. Directly in front of them in the light of their flashlights was a nurse's station. Farther along the W wall were ICU suites, almost all the far E half of the building was collapsed into rubble. The tracks led past the desk. In fact, there were several tracks (left at different times) leading from the stairwell back and forth to and from the dark interior of the ICU.

A boot was lying in the dust near the nurse's station near the tracks. Lying on its side on the desk was a broken-looking videocam.

Peter scanned the new area as they peeked inside, staying still for a moment save for his head and eyes. Then he began to slowly creep forward, machete in hand. It had taken a lot of firepower - and apparently really good aim at one spot - to take down the gross undead they'd been running in to. He wasn't sure if he had enough ammo for this kind of fight really.

He moved towards the ICU suites first, thinking it might be something being done to people in them. Or more likely some kind of surgery suite but he didn't know where that was.

 Chricton kept the HI SAW at the ready. That ammo was beyond plentiful so no need to hold back normally with it. He saw the broken camera pointed to it and motioned he was going for it to the group. He would get close to it before checking the area behind the nurse's station. Low and slow. Crouched not crawling. That way if needed he could move quicker in theory.

Smoker, still a scavenger at heart, was looking around wondering if anything useful was left or if the entire place had been robbed out already.

Trask followed along, more concerned with covering the rest of the team. His rifle was at his shoulder as they moved though the hospital.



-

Trask moved out to a more central location on the floor so he could cover the ICU suites on both sides and the operating theatre at the back.

From what Smoker could see, the floor looked like it was picked clean of easy salvage. That is, aside from broken furniture and rubble nothing of value remained that was easily taken (like first aid kits, fire extinguishers, printers, working monitors, etc.). But the walls had not yet been torn open to get at the copper wiring and piping, light fixtures remained intact, the wrecked bed and the dusty chairs behind the nurses' station still had metal that could be salvaged, etc.

Picking up the holocam that was lying on the desk Crichton noted that it looked like it had been long submerged due to it being crusted with algae. It was still damp, indicating it had been submerged until a couple days ago at most. The data slug remained in its port. The power supply was completely dead.

Using the tip of his machete Peter pushed open the door to the ICU suite closest to the nurses' station and noted that from the track it left in the dust on the floor it hadn't been opened for a while. Indeed the tracks they were following (and it looked like someone had come back and forth) led back towards the operating theatre at the northern end of the floor.




This message was last edited by the GM at 18:54, Mon 06 Nov 2023.

 Chricton pulls the slug and stores it in a safe but easy to reach place. And then wraps the camera itself up and stores it."Probably our salvage teams Holocorder."

Peter closed the door and stepped back, shaking his head. "Looks like this has not been disturbed in a while." He nodded in a direction. "And the tracks indicate...the operating theater was their, and is our, destination."

He glanced at the others to make sure they were ready before he headed that way.

In reply to Tech. Sgt. Airen Crichton (msg # 646):

Once he examined it more closely, the silt draining out of the holo-cam and the algae encusgint it indicated it had been underwater for several years. Probably recovered from the first, completely flooded floor.

They slowly moved towards the northern half of the floor, away from the stairs. Weak sunlight came in through the destroyed and collapsed SE wall. It slowly faded as they proceeded. Trask picked up nothing on thermal and not much more on his low-light viewer.

The rear wall was marked "Operating Theater". There were 4 doors marked (from left to right) "SURGICAL PREP", two middle ones marked "SCRUB ROOM" and then the far right was marked "GALLERY A".

They could see the tracks led to the far left door, the one to the surgical prep room.

Trask kept up with the rest of the team as they move through the operating space. He covered the door that they had not opened when people stopped to look at this or that.


-

Peter slowly made his way forward, easing in to the next area. He paused a bit inside as he looked to see what there was to see. And there were several doors. He frowned slightly at the choices.

But soon enough they could tell that the surgical prep door was the one that the tracks lead to. He hesitated a moment, wondering if they should ignore the other doors but...if they were long-abandoned like the rest of the place, then it made sense to keep focusing on the tracks.

So he edged towards the surgical prep door, and discreetly checked to see if the door was easily open-able or not.

Smoker frowned, remember the dim and distant past.

"They made operating theatres with a gallery where medical students could observe proceedings from above. Might make a good overwatch position... Scrub room was where surgeons washed their hands before starting work."

In reply to Peter Firecrow (msg # 650):

It looked like the door to Surgical Prep opened freely, if stiffly, inwards. It had a card-reader and could be opened hydraulically to admit a full-sized moveable bed. But both were very much inoperative.

Peter glanced back at his companions to make sure they were ready, eyebrows up, and a small head gesture. After receiving nods of agreement or however they chose to indicate things, only then would he count silently down on one hand but since he was holding the gun he instead mouthed the numbers, "One. Two. Three." On three, he then opened the door with his other open hand.

In reply to Peter Firecrow (msg # 653):

Shining their flashlights into the dark room they saw it had several rusty beds in the near corner.

The smell of rotting, decaying flesh was overpowering. Sweeping their flashlights around they saw that in the far end was the door to the operating theatre. In that corner were dozens of corpses. They were piled up like cordwood. Namely because they were as stiff as boards due to rigor mortis.

Peter slowly stepped in to the room. He was moving carefully in case was in there they hadn't yet seen - or in case the corpses were of the get-up-and-walk variety. He first glanced upwards and shone his light around the ceiling to make sure nothing was lurking above.

Then he began, still from a distance, checking the corpses and especially to see if they had toe tags on them.

Trask pointed to the pile of corpses and then kept his rifle pointed at the pile of potential undead. What he would not do with some sort of flame thrower right now.


-

In reply to Peter Firecrow (msg # 655):

The corpses all seemed to of the Gators gang, and therefore recent. Within a day or so. While still wet from being submerged, none were as bloated as the horrifying corpses that had attacked them on the Gators' ship.

None of these ones moved.

Holding back his gag reflex, Peter immediately noticed a couple thigs: none of these corpses wore the toe tags inscribed with symbols, or any toe tags, that the other more mobile corpses had been wearing. Also, none had been cut open with a deep Y-incision and their internal organs removed, something common to autopsied patients, another feature.