It was all dark. Only some still working lamps with their hazy yellowish gleam gave way to the passages of the old factory. The falling of droplets of water from broken pipes hitting whatever awful smelling murky substance blemished the sticky floors.

Heavy but quick steps echoed, accompanied by murmurs, angry exclamations, and an outburst of laughter.

One of the two shadowy figures pulled the other pink haired into a dark corner, away from the main hallway, immediately shoving him away as he reached to the earphone tucked over his right ear.

"I copy. Cameron, what is the status?"

His other companion, leaned in an ear to take some of the conversation.

From the speaker came a shuffling of apparent documents and the fast inhumane clacking of fingers over the keyboard. A low yet cheery voice followed,

"The package is just another sixty feet, after one turn to your right and the other to your left."

The receiver grunted in confirmation.

Cameron added,

"But Z.O., you and Brython should prepare to encounter yourself with Eaters, or the likes. My satellites are detecting movement in the second turn and in the surrounding area of the package."

Z.O. grunted again in affirmation as he copied out.

Brython chuckled and grinned as he took off the fire lock on his two Glock 19 handguns.

Brython,

"I heard 'im. But you know, you didn't have to push me so hard. I almost tripped and fell on my face!"

Z.O. stared at him unfaced with his perpetual frown. He held tight to his Sig Sauer Sig 556 and cocked his head to the side.

"If you insist on not lowering the volume of your voice, I might not just push you the next time and just right on knock you out and leave you for the Eaters. Let's go!"

Brython sniffled in mockery as he walked past Z.O.

"What did I ever do to deserve a partner like you? Such awful anger management problems..."

He continued to laugh as Z.O.'s lips twitched into an almost smile.

Z.O.,

"I ask myself that ALL the time..."

They turned the first right and just before heading to the end of the main hall, a faint but apparent gurgle and snarling was heard on the distance.

Z.O. and Brython came to an abrupt stop, readied their guns straight to the blacked-out space in front of them.

Z.O. whispered,

"How many are there Brython?"

Brython knitted his brows and concentrated his hearing before replying with an eased tone,

"Not many. I'd say about six over there, and a little big party of ten right where our price is located."

Z.O. grimaced as he ignored Brython and spoke to the danger ahead.

"I believe this is no grinning matter. What the f*ck are you happy about?"

After a pause and fast thinking Z.O. continued,

"We'll go fifty-fifty."

Brython chuckled aiming both his guns in front of him.

He looked at Z.O. and shook his head forward.

"Ladies first~"

Z.O. ignored his remark and commented as he angled with menacing precision his riffle towards the darkness and fired, earning the squishing sound of grey matter splattering unto surfaces and the hard thud of a body against the ground,

"Don't mind if I do...", and he ran.

Brython tightened his jaw as his grin turned manic and his eyes blew wide. He caught up to the running figure of his partner and just as the snarling noises were a breaths away, he leaped into the air and with a deadly kick smashed one of the Eaters head unto the ground, killing it in the instant. He raised his guns to either side of him and fired.

He laughed and exclaimed,

"HA! NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL KILLING WITH STYLE!"

Two other Eaters rushed from in front and behind him but immediately were annihilated by Z.O with a blow and a piercing of the head by a knife thrown from afar.

Brython pouted.

"I had them already on my radar!"

Z.O. extracted the knife from the dead Eater's head and cleaned it thoroughly on its mangled clothe.

"Sure, you did. You still have the ones from the room remember?"

Z.O. knocked open the door and both were received by ten bloated creatures, that if they were once Eaters, what resembled them, was long gone.

The air had a stench of hydrogen sulfide, butanol and all kinds of bad smelling molecules complicated enough to put into a list.

Z.O. sniffed while Brython coughed.

Z.O.,

"Well... I didn't expect this inconvenience..."

One of the creatures gurgled something black as it moved towards them.

The bloated Eaters were slow, but that was not what worried the pair. The space was small to move in with fast efficiency and the creatures looked like they might explode any second. Neither of them wanted to experience getting smothered by rotten Eater goo. Z.O. was not one to care about the frivolousness of smell, but this was another thing entirely. The idea made him gag.

Two of the creatures were five feet away when Brython hit the trigger.

Just when the bullet met the bulging on their temple, the creature's head exploded, covering everything in their surroundings with their heavy stench slime.

Brython cursed,

"GODDAMIT!"

With that he and Z.O, marched inside and finished off the rest of the Eaters, trying hard enough to pay no mind to how they got soaked with the creature's discharge and the feeling of its goo trickling down places that it should not be in.

Once the last one of the creatures was put down, Z.O. contacted the technology team, back at the base.

"Cameron, do you copy?"

After half a minute, the transmission noise was followed by Cameron's voice.

"I copy. You guys are at the right place. The package is just in front of you."

Brython yelled,

"I SEE NOTHING! Disgusting!"

Cameron laughed.

"Judging by Brython's angry remark you guys didn't have the best of times..."

Brython tried to clean his guns with his equally filthy clothe, while in an outburst of anger kicked one of the dead creatures and smearing more slime unto his combat boots.

Z.O. took them back to the matter at hand.

"The package is nowhere to be seen. There's only a desk and..."

He circled the desk, finding that it had four locked drawers.

He continued,

"There are drawers here... Locked...The package must be inside one of them. I'll contact you later. Copy and out!"

Taking the drawers by their handle pulls, Z.O. pulled with all his force, and as they gave out, inspected the content on each of them.

The first two top right drawers had nothing of interest, but once he opened the other lower two, he found an old Toughbook and a small hard drive.

Cameron's voice came again from the receiver on his earphone.

"I bet you guys already finished retrieving our price. I just sent for the rest of your unit. Meet them at the exit about thirty feet from here."

Z.O. handed Brython the hard drive as they walked their way out of the infested factory.

As they neared the truck with the rest of the troop, Brython commented in distaste and obvious annoyance,

"We went through all this trouble only for these two sh*ts? Just you wait! Before I take this disgusting slime off me, I'll be sure to smother it all on that b*tch Cameron! He should be assigned to more special missions, instead of being on that leather chair of his and his STUPID computer thingies!"

They jumped in the back of the truck with the rest of the unit, not paying attention to the faces of disgust and awe of their comrades.

Z.O.,

"You know he is the best from the Communications and Technology Department. He is better off behind the system, instead of fighting off a sweat."

Brython countered,

"I'M ALSO from THAT department Z.O. if you forgot! I can be as good as him with computers!"

Z.O. sighed,

"IF you wanted to. The most you do once in your desk is play weapon and war games. You do nothing of programming whatsoever."

Brython tsked.

"Shut up!"

One of the younger components of the unit murmured, either for his own, or the rest, but it was equally heard by Brython.

"He is right though..."

Brython took off his soiled black tank top and slapped it straight unto the rookie's face.

"NOONE ASKED YOUR OPINION!"

The whole truck remained silent for some seconds before laughter erupted. Some tried to console their emotionally disturbed comrade, while the others asked about each other's encounters while on the mission. Brython's smirk appeared back on his face as he told three members of the troop how he and Z.O. terminated the blob like Eaters and ended up covered on their stinking slime.

Z.O. watched the whole scene play through only to direct his eyes to the laptop on his hands, thinking,

I wonder why are you so important...?