The door wasn't locked, just jammed shut with rust and the sheer weight of neglect. Zadira Kosh, a study in obsidian and chrome, didn’t bother with the handle. Her boot, reinforced with a plasteel cap, hit the tarnished metal panel just above the lock with the percussive crack of a thunderclap. The door shrieked inward, tearing free from its upper hinge and collapsing into my apartment with a cloud of ancient dust. “Zinn, Kassur. Marduk Enforcers. We have a warrant for–” “A warrant for a new door, by the looks of it,” I cut in, already halfway through re-chambering the left barrel of my twin autopistols. The scent of ozone and stale synth-ale hung heavy in the air, a familiar bouquet. “You know, most people knock. Or at least wait for an RSVP.” Zadira, all angular lines and a stare that could freeze a thermal vent, didn't flinch. Her rifle, a sleek ‘Adad’ long-range disruptor, remained slung across her back, but her hands were already drifting towards the twin holsters at her hips. Her eyes, the color of wet slate, swept my squalid living space: the mountains of scrap metal, the flickering bioluminescent fungi I used for light, the crude workbench where I cobbled together relics from the Before-Time. Behind her, in the gloom of the Ziggurat Slums’ Corridor 7, I could just make out the shimmer of the pervasive spore-fog, a sickly viridian glow that pulsed with unseen life. “Your illicit dealings in bio-modified relics have come to our attention, scavenger. Surrender now, and we can discuss–” Her warning was cut short by a wet, guttural shriek that clawed its way from outside. The window, a grimy sheet of ferro-glass, detonated inward in a spray of razor shards. A hulking mass of mottled flesh and chitinous plating, vaguely man-shaped but twisted into a mockery of itself, burst through the opening. It was my neighbor, old Belis, or what was left of him. His left arm had fused into a scythe-like blade, dripping with viscous ichor, and his jaw was distended, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth. Acid rose in my throat, hot and vile—the same bile that flared whenever Nia shielded her sleeve from me. Belis was simply next week's mirror. Yet years in the under-levels had trained my lips into a grin, a cracked shield against the dark. “Belis, you old dog! I told you to stop borrowing my tools without asking!” I yelled, even as my hands moved with practiced, desperate speed. The sidearms barked, twin pulses of superheated plasma ripping through the air. The first shot cored Belis’s chest, splashing crimson and greenish sludge across my prized collection of antique circuit boards. The second blew off the top of his skull, splattering what remained of his brain matter across the ceiling in a chunky, sickening abstract. The creature, Belis, whatever it was, crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud, twitching once before going still. Zadira, who had already unholstered a compact ‘Nergal’ energy sidearm, lowered it fractionally. Her expression was unreadable, but I could feel the microscopic shift in her focus. The enforcer, for all her cold professionalism, had been genuinely seconds from losing her head. “Amateur. Next time, try aiming for something vital,” I quipped, sliding my guns away and pulling a tarnished copper casing from a pouch at my belt. It hummed with a faint, disturbing energy. “But hey, no worries. I’ve got a trick for that.” [ *Ereshkigal-Echo Interface Initializing…* *Target acquired: Deceased Bio-horror, Type: Belis (formerly Human).* *Initiating ‘Reanimate – Basic Corporeal’ protocol…* *Processing…* *Success. Cost: 1x Teshub-Grade Bullet Casing. Skill: Necrotic Reanimation (Tier 1).* *Welcome back to the land of the mostly-living, slugger! Don’t forget to stretch!* ] A sickly green light pulsed from the fallen monstrosity. Belis’s limbs twitched, then his chest began to heave. His head, or what was left of it, rotated with a sickening crunch. His dead eyes, now glowing with an eerie phosphorescence, fixed on me. Zadira’s sidearm snapped back up, tracking the rising monstrosity. “What in the Abyss…?” “Relax, he’s with me,” I said, already rummaging through a toolbox. I pulled out a heavy-duty industrial nail-gun, modified with an extended magazine and a reinforced barrel. “Belis, old buddy, you’re looking a little… unequipped. Let’s fix that.” With quick, seasoned motions, I strapped the nail-gun to Belis’s newly bound, bladed arm, securing it with thick synth-leather straps. The zombie stood there, uncomplaining, a silent, grotesque mannequin. I patted his chitinous shoulder. “There, good as new. Or at least, good enough for government work.” Zadira stared, her gaze flicking between me and the risen Belis. The pistol remained raised, unwavering. “You… you brought back a Xar-Kutu mutated abomination and armed it with a tool from a construction site.” Her voice was flat, devoid of inflection, but her grip on the grip tightened, her knuckles white. “Well, yeah. It’s a nail-gun, not a squirt gun. And look, he’s not *entirely* Xar-Kutu yet, just mostly. The point is, dead things don’t need re-loading, and they don’t complain about the overtime.” I walked past Belis, retrieved my sidearms, and glanced at Zadira. “Now, about this ‘warrant’ you mentioned. I think we have bigger fish to fry, don’t you? Like, say, the entire lower tier being overrun by more of Belis’s enthusiastic relatives?” I gestured vaguely towards the spore-choked corridor outside, then back to my sister, Nia, who was sitting silently on a rickety stool in the corner of the room. She kept her right arm tucked close to her body, but the faint, sickly green glow emanating from beneath her sleeve was impossible to miss. The bio-spore infection was already halfway to her shoulder, a creeping, iridescent roadmap of our impending doom. Zadira followed my gaze, her expression hardening further. The Marduk Enforcers were notorious for their unwavering adherence to protocol, but even they couldn’t ignore a looming bio-catastrophe. “Your sister is infected,” she stated, not a question. “Astute observation, Detective Kosh. Give the lady a prize. And if I don’t find a cure across that poisoned ocean in the next thirty days, she’ll be throwing flesh-mutated parties of her own,” I said, forcing a casual shrug while my pulse pounded against my ribs. “Which means we have a mutual problem. You want to maintain some semblance of order in this glorified tomb, and I want to save my sister. So, how about we team up? My bullet-casing necromancy and endless supply of bad jokes, your deadpan sniper skills and iron discipline. What do you say?” Her jaw worked for a moment, a muscle twitching beneath her cheekbone. She scanned my room again, taking in Belis, then Nia, then me. The logic, as cold and brutal as her own methods, must have appealed to her. “Fine,” she clipped. “But any funny business, Zinn, and I’ll put a bullet in your head before your… pet… can even twitch.” “Fair enough. Now, let’s go. I hear the lower tiers of Akkadia Prime have the best deals on fresh meat. And by meat, I mean more things for Belis to test his aim on.” I started towards the smashed door, Belis lumbering silently behind me, the nail-gun glinting menacingly. [ *New Objective Unlocked: Ziggurat Descent – Akkadia Prime. Eliminate Xar-Kutu Bio-Horrors from Corridor 7 to Sector Alpha. Rewards: 'Leviathan Whisperer' Schematic (Tier 1), 1x Ereshkigal-Echo Core Fragment, 500x Bio-Scrap.* ] I was about to make another crack when a new system message, more urgent than the last, flashed across my internal interface. [ *Urgent Objective Update! Target acquired: Commandeer a Tiamat-Class Leviathan.* ] My mouth fell open. “A Tiamat-Class Leviathan? That’s like… the size of a city block! Where did that even come from?” Before Zadira could respond, or I could process this insane new directive, a deep, resonant groan echoed through the very structure of the lower tiers. Not a tremor from an explosion, but a fundamental tearing, a groan of stressed metal and failing foundations. The floor beneath our feet buckled, then ripped open with a sound like tearing fabric. The ground vanished, plunging us into a pitch-black abyss, a fog-choked bio-nest where something massive and wet was breathing.

The Dead Don't Need Reloading