Weapon System in Zombie Apocalypse

Phillip stepped back from the wall, his fingers lingering for a moment on the cool metal tag he had just screwed in. It wasn't much. Just a piece of scorched alloy with a serial code barely legible beneath the charring. But it meant something—at least to him.

He stared at the plaque longer than he intended. Damascus. Another city lost. Another memory hollowed out by fire. He didn't cry. He hadn't for years. But something inside him pulled tight, like a cable on the verge of snapping.

Bootsteps echoed behind him. Quiet. Hesitant. He turned to find Rebecca standing near the chapel entrance, her coat half-buttoned and her expression unreadable in the candlelight.

"I thought I'd find you here," she said gently.

"You watching me?" Phillip asked.

"I watch all of you," she said with a shrug, stepping inside. "Part of the job."

He turned back to the wall. "I don't even know how many of these I've installed."

"Nine," she said. "You've flown recon on nine of the twelve cities we've burned. You were first into Tokyo. Last out of Cairo."

Silence stretched between them for a few seconds.

"I keep wondering," Phillip finally said, "when we'll run out of names to carve."

Rebecca crossed her arms, her voice low. "Maybe that's the goal. Maybe when there's nothing left to lose, we finally stop pretending there's a war to win."

Phillip turned toward her, brow furrowed. "You think we've already lost?"

"I think," she said slowly, "we're still counting victories in the wrong way."

Before he could respond, the chapel's old speaker system cracked to life with a distorted chime. Then Thomas's voice, filtered through static.

"Executive Command to Raven Lead. Briefing at Level Six, War Room Bravo. Immediate."

Phillip exhaled. "That's me."

Rebecca gave him a nod. "Go."

He passed her in silence, leaving the chapel bathed in stillness once more.

Day 50 – 05:30 AM, MOA Complex – War Room Bravo

The walls of War Room Bravo were steel-gray and lined with tactical projectors, drones humming softly in overhead charging bays. Thomas stood at the front of the table, arms folded, eyes fixed on a new holographic map.

Riyadh.

Red-flagged.

The core was pulsing faintly with life—tentative, newly formed, and spreading fast.

"You're sure?" Phillip asked as he approached.

Rebecca had already beat him there, standing off to the side. Casimiro and Sison sat opposite Thomas, both with their tablets open.

Thomas nodded. "Biomass signature started pulsing two days ago. At first, we thought it was just aftershock residue from Damascus. But then it grew."

"Satellite confirms a Bloom Cluster forming in the city's southern industrial corridor," Casimiro said. "Rapid expansion. We're talking ten square kilometers in under forty-eight hours."

"Another one?" Phillip muttered. "Already?"

"They're not giving us time to breathe," Rebecca said. "And this one's different."

"How?" Phillip asked.

Rebecca pointed to a data spike on the display. "Multiple energy pulses. Not just growth activity, but localized EMP bursts. They're developing adaptive defenses."

Thomas stepped back from the table. "They learned from Damascus."

Phillip's jaw clenched. "You think they're evolving based on our attacks?"

"I don't think. I know," Thomas said grimly. "They're not just reacting anymore. They're anticipating."

There was a long pause before Thomas spoke again.

"We're deploying another Firebreak. But this time, we'll do it manually. No MIRVs. Just good old-fashioned cruise missiles—low altitude, multi-vector. We hit it before it spreads."

Phillip raised an eyebrow. "You're saying we do it like the old days?"

Thomas nodded. "Three JL-7s from Overwatch battery. Remote guided, terrain-hugging profiles. Harder to intercept, even for whatever fungal nervous system they've grown."

"And the warheads?" Phillip asked.

"Ten kiloton thermobaric-nuclear hybrids. Contained yield. Less fallout, more heat."

Sison added, "We'll also deploy ECM drones ahead of the strike. Jam everything within fifty clicks. Make the nest think it's deaf before we make it dead."

Phillip crossed his arms. "And what do you want me to do?"

Thomas looked at him. "Lead the forward recon again. Confirm coordinates from visual. We've narrowed the origin zone to Riyadh's former Ministry District. We need eyes on."

Phillip gave a grim nod. "When do we leave?"

"Now."

Day 50 – 07:00 AM, Overwatch Long-Range Airstrip – Western Launch Corridor

Phillip walked toward the parked Valkyrie-class heavy transport jet with his recon team in tow. The tarmac was lit in the pale glow of dawn, rows of drones idling nearby like metal vultures waiting for orders.

Raven Two was already prepped. Twin engines hummed low. Inside were mobile recon kits, contamination suits, and a live uplink to Command.

Rebecca caught up with him before he boarded.

"You sure you're ready for this?" she asked.

Phillip smirked faintly. "Doesn't matter if I'm ready. I'm needed."

Rebecca held out a sealed packet. "Your override keys. They're yours to use if things go south and you have to call for premature detonation."

Phillip took it. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

She gave him a long look. "You've been on twelve of these flights. You know what you'll see."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "But it never gets easier."

The bay ramp sealed behind him as Raven Two's engines roared to full thrust.

Day 50 – 12:35 PM, Airspace Over Central Arabia – Approaching Riyadh

The desert rolled beneath them like a sea of dust and ruin. Winds carried old ash from Damascus's fall, blending it with sandstorms kicked up by the expanding Bloom Nest in Riyadh.

The cockpit radar blinked with incoming signal loss.

"We're hitting the jamming zone," said the pilot.

Phillip nodded and checked his HUD. "All drones to low-altitude mode. Activate sensor pods. Scan everything."

They dropped to under 500 feet, gliding over shattered highways and skeletal buildings. Riyadh had long since fallen—most civilians gone, military installations dead. What remained now looked like a nightmare birthed from the bones of a city.

The Bloom Nest appeared as a moving horizon. Like Damascus, it was flat, sprawling, wide. But this one shimmered with a strange metallic sheen. As if the biomass had incorporated steel, glass, and copper into its hide.

"Christ," whispered one of the recon troopers. "It's armored itself."

"New evolution," Phillip said. "We document everything. No assumptions."

The pilot angled the aircraft for a spiral pass over the core.

Down below, they could see it: a central dome-like formation built from fused skyscraper frames and muscle-like fiber, pulsing slowly like a sleeping heart. Tendrils of biomass snaked out into the surrounding suburbs.

They'd have to aim precisely.

Phillip keyed into the live uplink.

"Raven Two to Command. We have visual on core. Coordinates uploaded. Nest confirmed. Ready for strike."

"Copy that," Thomas's voice came. "Cruise missiles inbound. ETA twelve minutes."

Phillip stared down at the thing.

It was growing faster than anything he'd seen.

And it wasn't just spreading.

It was organizing.

Day 50 – 12:47 PM, Riyadh – Bloom Cluster Core

The first JL-7 roared in low, hugging the earth, its nose burning white-hot as it screamed toward the heart of the beast.

The Bloom Nest didn't react.

Not until the final five seconds.

A flash of bioelectric pulses erupted from the core. The surface of the biomass shifted, like muscle flexing beneath skin. Tendrils shot upward, spraying some kind of electromagnetic burst into the air.

The missile staggered.

But it didn't fall.

It struck the target dead-on.

A second later, the thermobaric payload ignited. A sun bloomed in the desert.

Seconds later, the second and third missiles followed, detonating in rapid succession.

The effect was immediate and devastating—shockwaves turned the steel-armored surface to molten slag, rupturing the biomass beneath. Gouts of black ichor shot skyward like volcanic blood.

The screams came—not from anything alive, but from the nest itself. A deep, rattling groan like a thousand voices exhaling as one.

Phillip and the others watched from the circling aircraft.

"No signs of recovery," the sensor tech confirmed. "It's dying."

But Phillip didn't answer.

Because something was moving beneath the flames.

Day 50 – 13:15 PM, Overwatch Command – MOA Complex

Thomas stood in the War Room, staring at the feed from Riyadh. What should have been another crater was instead a smoldering plain of broken biomass—and something rising from it.

A shape.

Massive.

Bipedal.

Towering.

Rebecca's eyes widened. "Is that…?"

"It survived," Casimiro whispered. "Something inside survived the triple strike."

The creature was covered in layers of fused armor, its eyes glowing dimly as it stumbled through the fire.

Thomas leaned forward. "Get me Phillip."

Phillip's headset crackled. "Raven Lead, come in."

He didn't answer immediately. The silhouette below was massive, dragging molten cables behind it like entrails. It wasn't just surviving—it was walking out of a nuclear inferno.

"Command, this is Raven Lead," he said slowly. "We've got movement. Target survived. I repeat, the target survived."

There was a pause on the line. Then Thomas's voice: cold, steady.

"Do not engage. Get clear. We're rewriting the playbook."

Phillip stared at the creature below, now turning its head—toward them.

For the first time in years, Phillip felt something colder than fear.

It looked back.