Shelldrake and the members of his team looked at each other dumbfounded as they waited for the second tone to kick in to indicate yet another drill. Slowly it dawned on them that it wasn't a drill ...
It was as if a tornado had hit the room as they jumped up and pulled their gear together. Into this maelstrom of action, the administrator's voice came over the PA - "Security lockdown enacted in the lower laboratory. Response team to security door 1 now!" None of the team commented on the edge of panic creeping into in the admin's voice ...
"Clear a hole!" shouted Shelldrake as he led his team at a jog into the corridor and towards the staircase - unneccessarily he found as the corridor was deserted. "Shit," he thought as he led his men pounding down the staircase. "It had to be the lower lab..." There was no camera feed available to him from there due to 'security' - even though he was the shift super! They did know the floorplan at least ...
"What's the story Shawn?!" Shelldrake barked into his comms headset
"Unknown," came the administrator's shaky reply. "The alarm was tripped from the main lower lab. Been trying to contact them but - wait"
Shelldrake held his hand up to stop his team as they reached 'security door 1' - a steel shutter that had sealed the top of the stairs down from the main lab floor to the lower lab.
Shawn's voice came back through his headset, "Spoken to Doctor Brummie," he began, "There were 12 staff on the floor; 8 of them are in the offices at the far end of the main lab, 4 unaccounted for. The containment on an experiment in group dynamics on their 'subjects' broke down. All 8 of them are uncontained and he described them as 'very violent'."
"Oh wonderful!" Shelldrake responded to this news. "What the hell does 'subjects' mean?" he demanded of Shawn.
"He wouldn't tell me anything else - said I wasn't cleared for it," replied Shawn. "Shellie ... he instructed extreme containment though - shoot-on-sight ..." Shawn's voice trailed off.
"Oh my god ..." was all Shelldrake could say ... after a moment's pause he continued, "Open security door 1 on my mark and close on my second mark - understood?"
"Got it," Shawn replied
Shelldrake outlined the situation to his team, looking each in the eye in turn as he did, finishing with, "Extreme Containment authorised - we all know what that means. 'Very Violent' is an unknown. You all know what to do though. Identify your targets - there are 4 unaccounted for friendlies in there. Keep calm; remember your training and we will all come through this. Now, time to earn your pay."
Turning to face the door, he engaged his microphone and said curtly "Mark." The steel shutter rolled up and to his right, with a quiet swish, revealing the stairs. Quickly Shelldrake led his team through, and said, "Mark," again, even more curtly if possible. Again the swish noise and the shutter closed. "Good seal," Shelldrake told Shawn, "switching to team net, will log in every 5. Shelldrake out."
Taking a deep breath, Shift Supervisor Shelldrake turned and led his men down the stairs to the Lower Laboratory ...
The above is the backstory to an ATZ game I've set up to play today, which has come about for a couple of reasons. The first thing was a thread over on the board of living lead where I posted some photos of the resin dungeon stuff I've accumulated over the years - mainly from Ainsty Castings. The second was a comment I made on a post on Mathyoo's blog - campaign-set-up-theory-1 - where I recommended that he play a game rather than wait until he had everything ready ... hmmm ... pot, kettle? So I decided to actually play a game myself - especially when I checked back and found my last zombie game was over a year ago!
So, I've set this game up. The layout of the 'Lower Lab' is shown in the pic below. As you can see from it, my stuff is definitely dungeonesque so I've used crates and barrels to stand in for 'assorted science stuff'
And here is the response team led by Shift Super' Shelldrake. The minis are from eM4 Miniatures' Para-Military range and were fun to paint (if you've looked at that page, yes I do have some sentry guns, but unfortunately Shelldrake doesn't!)
Hopefully I'll post a batrep later today sometime ...