S216: The Invasion

Dundalk College has a room dedicated to computer gaming, not intentionally, but the guys use it for that purpose. Its called S216... We're considered the zombies of the college... i decided to twist that belief and adapt it into a story. Enjoy

The whole area was quarantined, Gardai swept over the area around the barriers looking for signs of life within the dead zone. It was hard to believe that a radiation reaction would occur at a place like the regional college. Analysts continued to sprout theories as to the cause of the explosion, but none could even match to the reality that the populace of Dundalk stood witness to.

A genetic virus that seemed to be non contagious had mutated a small portion of Dundalk, resulting in the government quickly putting a lock down on the immediate affected area, and patrols stationed around the neighbouring regions. Over the course of a few hours since that morning, the hospital beside the college became swamped with students and citizens from the local estates all claiming stomach pains and showing unregistered symptoms. Specialists were called to examine the first of the patients, but whatever conclusion they came to is unknown…as they never made it out of the hospital alive.
It was then that the first reports came in of violence occurring in the area, and strangely enough, it was the same type of call every time. People were claiming to be bitten by random strangers in the street…
It was probably then that we should have started panicking, but then again, its hard to panic when you haven’t a clue what is going on.
But then again, our story has to start somewhere…so why not at the beginning? The fabled lads of 216, this is our story.

_____________________________________________________________

“Okay, Okay, I have to work now!” Rogan said as he pressed the windows key. Sighs echoed throughout the room as the server went down for what must have been the tenth time that day. The screen slowly started to fade away, but a quick slap to the side of the CPU brought the tired Michael back to his start menu. The mouse clicked at an awesome speed as the games student started opening up browser windows and typing websites into random tabs.

The boisterous yells of the gamers was only rivalled by the sounds of gun shots radiating from Paco’s computer, him being the only one that couldn’t find his ear phones. Maybe if Paco hadn’t played, people would have noticed the sounds of the gun shots outside of their room. Maybe more people would be alive today if they only knew what was happening in Dundalk, but then again…they did have more warning then most people, they just couldn’t really read it all that well.
“Haha, awesome!” Rogan said as he scrolled through the text on his screen. “Dundalk is on the American News!”
“Probably the Dundalk in America.” Tom said from across the room without looking up. “What does it say?” Sean asked absentmindedly as he watched his character get shot in the back for what seemed like the billionth time. Slamming down the mouse, Pip got up from his chair and made his way to the door. “Anyone want anything from the vending machines?”
When nobody bothered to answer, he made his way out to the corridor. It was then that a voice called out, “Close the door!”
Not one person noticed the flickering lights in the corridor, not one person noticed the lack of students in the college, and not one person noticed that Pip never came back.

____________________________________________________________

“It says that there was an unexplained outbreak over a small area…” Rogan began as he started to read every few lines on the screen.
“Sort of like the Bird Flu thingy?” Eanna asked, lifting his head momentarily from his laptop, resulting in his Tekken character dying horribly. “I’ll flew your bird!” Paddy answered randomly, his fingers constantly tapping the F keys of the cradled keyboard in his lap. “An outbreak of obesity?…well, they are American?” Brian asked as he reclined in his chair.
“Weak, I would have said something about retardations…but I know its probably something like an oil leak or some shite like that, hey!” Durcan said as he nonchalantly killed four characters with a grenade.
“No, you’re all wrong!” Rogan started before he was cut off.
“An Oil leak?! The poor seals!” Sharon piped up from her computer.
“Dundalk is inland…” Brian said confusedly.
“Did you say Penis?” was Sharon’s only reply.
Brian turned back to his computer without comment, for once in his life. Eanna sighed as he returned to his game, Sean started changing weapon types in game. Barry held a conversation with Lee as they both killed the entirety of the in game map with ease. Rogan continued to mumble about nuclear air strikes and animal testing, but nobody paid each other any heed. It was for this reason that everybody loved to stay in S216. Nobody cared what you were like, what you did. It was hard to be judged when you were in that room. People went to play games, have fun and just relax.
It was often remarked that such a laidback attitude to work could only end up in their demise, however in this scenario, it was that very characteristic shared by the computer game lads, that saved all their lives.

____________________________________________________

“So, when you add the chip to the phone, it automatically sends a relay signal to the source, enabling the receiver to transmit multiple signals to the various areas that the originals represent…are you following?”
Anthony asked as he held up his old Nokia N-Gage.
Brian just nodded slowly, “Eh, yeah…so you can control something with that?”
“Well, yeah…but it can do so much more, look!” Anthony said as he turned and pointed the remote at Dwayne’s laptop. Brian laughed momentarily at Dwayne’s cry of remorse as his anime download screen vanished. Quickly restoring the screen, Anthony pocketed his old phone, picked up his two litre bottle of diet coke and made his way to the other side of the room. Brian resumed playing COD abysmally whilst Dwayne told Duffy pointedly that God loved him and his anime.
“So Barry, when did you realise you were a camper?”, Sean asked as performed an in-game jump shot on one of the first year gamers.
The “Aaaaak” from the other side of the table indicated Willer’s in-game death.
“I don’t camp Sligg.”, was Barry’s only reply.
“Like, maybe when you were young, your dad took you camping…and you loved it so much, you never stopped?”, Sean said as he re-spawned inside a hail of Barry’s bullets.
“I don’t camp Sligg.”, came the typical reply.
“So, you have the ability to know exactly where I am at any given point on the map and have the luxury of being able to shoot me in the back?”, Sean said as he slammed the mouse down on the table.
“I don’t camp Sligg.”, Barry said as he continued playing the game.
“I didn’t say anything about camping that time?”, Sean said as he turned around.
“I don’t cam-”, Barry started before Sean interrupted him.
“You’re not even listening to me?!” Sligg screeched as his character got shot in the head by none other than Barry.
“Sorry man, I was too busy camping!” Barry said with a smirk as Sean started raging again.

Rogan, for the first time in a long while, lost his happy smile and assumed a worried expression. “Eh, you guys, this isn’t the Dundalk in America…this is the Dundalk, Dundalk!”
“Actually, to phrase it correctly, you mean it is the Irish Dundalk…”, Tom said from across the room without lifting his head from his on-screen Gmail.
“So, what’s the problem with Dundalk, Dundalk?”, Paddy asked, ignoring Tom completely.
“Apparently the place has been quarantined, Lads! SHUT UP!” Rogan said as he got to his feet, his earphones falling as he rose. “Dkit is in a state of lockdown…”
“That’s ridiculous, obviously someone would have come in and said something, or there would be some type of alarm system going off.”, Willer said as he came around to look at Michael’s screen.
“It says that people were taken to hospitals all over the country, and treated for internal radioactive burns…”, Rogan said as he scrolled down the screen more and more.
Getting to his feet, Brian laughed and said, “Its probably just a stunt done by event management or the cultural studies groups, you know what they’re like…its probably just a farce. Although I am impressed that they managed to make a fake CNN page, like I didn’t think they’d be able to program something like that.”
“I looked at the source, its real.”, Duffy said as he walked over to the door.

As Duffy went to open the door, he had to jump backwards as it slammed open, nearly coming off the hinges. The noise of it caused everyone to turn around in shock, they couldn’t believe what stood in the open doorway.
Sean’s voice could be heard over the noise in the room, only to say, “It’s Gary!”
Taking his ear phones from his ears, Gary turned to the room and said “Dickheads, you started without me!”
The arrival of Gary took everyone’s mind away from the fact that the Institute was in a state of lockdown, what was funnier was that nobody thought to ask how Gary had gotten into the building, and funnier than that was how easily everyone resumed their daily routine of video games, completely oblivious to the turmoil occurring just down the corridor.

Gardai were stationed around the cordoned area, none quite sure how to treat the oncoming masses. It was nearing nightfall, and the guttural sound emanating from the approaching disfigured bodies was causing more than unease in the armed forces.
As the hours had passed, people watched the steady mutation occur from the safety of their own homes, and some even from the edge of the safety zones. Some had tried to break in to save loved ones, they were rewarded with death. Everything seemed so surreal, everything was normal that morning, but now, as it approached nine o’clock, people wondered how everything went wrong. The analysts that had tired to solve the mystery were turned and added to the ranks of the figures that roamed the college area.
Law enforcement were strictly ordered to stand by and only to fire as a last resort, however, what actually happened was quite the opposite. Since Dundalk was such a quiet town, the Garda decided that this might be their only chance to fire a live weapon, resulting in the casualty rate increasing dramatically. This caused a lot of the figures to retreat from the Dublin Rd. exit and the motorway exit. The crown plaza had sharpshooters placed at the roof, and the surrounding road that led to the retail outlet was fenced in. The infected people seemed to have a reduced intelligence, as not one of them tried to scale the walls. This meant that the only areas that had to be made safe were the Hoey’s Lane exit and the area leading into Murhevnamore. Initially the Garda tried to evacuate the area, but saw it as a lost cause as they couldn’t tell the mindless figures from most of the residents in the area.
Some resistances against the horde were attempted, but people had long since stopped trying. Many observers claimed that the figures behaved like Zombies. Seeing as such creatures of fictional, scientists from all over the world that are working on the abnormality, have refused the claim and are still working on their own analysis.
More importantly, one of the sharpshooters claimed to have seen a lone figure weave around the figures on a bicycle. Reputed to have made his/her way to the college in such a hurry that speculators suspect that their might still be people trapped in the college.
With external forces on their way to help out the situation, the Irish nation sat and waited from their own homes and wondered, what the hell was going on?

“Cant believe they haven’t kicked us out yet…” Rogan said as he checked his emails for about the hundredth time that day. “They must know I’m here!” Gary said from his perch across the room, “I should probably get my bike though, before they lock the gates.”
“I can give you a lift if you wa- ARGH, that was my kill!” a first year started before he slammed his headset down on the desk before getting to his feet.
“Whoa, calm down man or they will kick us out, again!” Barry said as he left the game.
“No Barry, they kicked you out…” Sean said from the opposite side of the room.
“…Why, because I’m a camper?” Barry asked in an exasperated tone.
“No, its cuz you’re gay!” Sean said with a smile before he started unplugging his hard drive from his laptop.
“Someone wake up Lee, don’t want him getting locked in again…” Derek said as he got to his feet, stretching his arms over his head.
Without looking, Donny shook Lee’s chair, waking him up.
“So lads, anyone up for the cinema?” Rogan asked as he got to his feet, his hands toying with one of his earphones, “I heard Juno’s worth a look?”
There was a low murmuring until Gary said he was going, at which point there was a general consensus to go, even Brian who had Nazi parents was up for going.
Leaping onto a table, Gary saluted into the air. “To the Cinema!”

Author's Note

Ingnore Grammer problems... Hope this makes Rachel smile...

Reviews

[FoolsGold23]

Some of the dialogue had me grinning, and yet, the morbidity outside the oblivious gaming room was sobering. Wondered what the good gracious was going on out of doors, then began to think that maybe the radiation from inside the "Cave" was making the surrounding people get sick? eh, no, who knows, I'll develope my theory as the story progresses, hehe, I like this one!!!

[No]

I'm not much for science fiction, but i have to admit you write incredibly well, with vivid imagery and life like experiences that spring into action into the mind.
i find anyone who has the willpower to write stories and to plan out an entire plotline logically, talented in and of themselves.
it was a pleasure to read,
and i look forward to reading others
and watching you develop as a writer.

mary jane,
and maybe even learn to like poetry even without attractive titles. :)