The red strobing lights from the station could hardly be a good sign. Sinjin watched in increasing dismay as the red glare attracted the undead to converge like bees to honey. Beside her, the doctor crouched closer to his assistant and the young girl. Ah Long pressed his son to his chest, his bat held protectively across their bodies.

Growls filled the air like an orchestra of hungry animals. Sinjin crouched lower and peeped through a hole in the shrubbery. Why wasn’t the other group moving?

She strained her ears, catching the sounds of struggle from the station. Whatever was happening there, it didn’t bode well for any of them. Panic rose in her. She looked over her shoulder at the road behind them. If she escaped now, she might be able to make it.

But for how long?

Biting her lips, she forced her anxiety back and kept it at bay. No, her best bet was to buy the other group some time. A soft sound from her left caught her eye. Ah Long had taken the sound bomb out of his pocket. He must have had the same thought as her. As he raised his hand to lob it, she lunged for his arm and squeezed it in warning.

He halted and gave her a hard, inquiring look. She shook her head, gesturing to the undead in front of them. If he so much as raised his hand above the bushes, he would give away their position. Even then, he wouldn’t be able to throw far enough for the undead to be distracted by the sound and allow them to sneak into the station.

She had a better solution.

Raising a finger to her lips, she dropped a hand to her pouch. Soundlessly, she extracted a small metallic ball. Her fingers found a button at the top and she pressed down. It unfolded into a four-legged metallic spider. A yellow light blinked at its bottom, awaiting instructions. 

Noticing her actions, the doctor’s eyes widened and he shrank away. Ah Long, on the other hand, watched intently. She gestured to Ah Long for the sound bomb. He hesitated for a few seconds before relenting. She examined the device and placed it carefully on the ground, along with her spider bot. 

Looking for a way to secure the sound bomb on the bot, she found the answer on the doctor’s assistant’s neck. She gestured to the woman to unfasten her scarf. When Mei clung to the useless material, she glared and shook a fist. The woman frantically removed her scarf and handed it over with a trembling hand.

Sinjin snatched the thin material away from Mei. She tied the scarf around the sound bomb and the bot, ensuring the knots were tight. It wasn’t the most secure way of fastening the two together but it would have to do. 

Shifting on her haunches, she took out her PalmComm. A few swipes of her thumb brought her to the bot’s control interface. Once she had set the parameters of the bot’s behavior, she sucked in a breath. This was the most dangerous part of the plan.

She hit the Start button.

The bot buzzed into action, its yellow light stabilizing to a green. 

The sound was soft but in the deafening silence of the night, it was more than enough. Sinjin froze as the growls behind the bush grew nearer. The kids whimpered, triggering more unwanted attention. She had no time to lose.

She looked down at her PalmComm and dragged her finger in a semi-circle. The bot flipped, hitting the sound bomb on the ground. A loud siren blasted through the night air. 

The doctor’s assistant yelped in terror as growls surged towards their hiding spot. Quick as a cheetah, Sinjin sent the bot flying out of the bush and tearing down the road towards the station. The growls followed the bot, growing further away from them. 

Grimacing, Sinjin exhaled shakily. Her chest felt ready to burst. Peeping out of the bush, she guided her bot as its thin metal legs flew across the tarmac, evading the stampede of feet by its autonomous programming. A few undead stumbled out of the fire station, attracted by the noise.

Satisfied that the station should now be empty, Sinjin steered the bot away. It scampered down the road, leading an army of undead in its wake. She kept it on a straight path until no growls could be heard. Then only did she poke her head out of the bushes.

The street was dead. She motioned to the group and took off at a sprint. When she reached the station, she slowed to a halt. The red lights had stopped flashing. A deep sense of unease rippled through her. She scanned the darkness within, unable to see anyone.

Quick footsteps raced towards her. She ducked to the ground and rolled to the side. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She could recall her bot to her side but it would be far too late. By then, she would be-

“What the hell just happened?” Aqra, the man who had saved her, appeared from the gloom. When he caught sight of her hunched form, his eyes narrowed. “You.”

She rose to her feet, her racing heart returning to its normal pace. The other survivors caught up with her. 

“What’s going on?” Ah Long asked.

“The fire truck needs to be charged,” Aqra said. “Shula and Qiyu are working on that. Joon Woo’s changing one of the flat tires.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Sinjin could make out a few shadows near the fire truck on the left. She hurried there and climbed up to open the door, only to receive a glancing blow on her forehead. She yelped in pain and almost fell back to the ground.

“Shit, sorry.” Qiyu retracted her rifle. “Get in.”

Cursing under her breath, Sinjin dropped into the passenger seat. “What’s happening?”

Qiyu pointed to the white numbers on the dashboard that inched toward 35%. “The truck isn’t charging as quickly as it should.”

A rap on the door of the driver’s side made the two of them jump in their seats. Shula’s head popped above the window. She barely registered Sinjin’s presence, her eyes more focused on the dashboard. “There’s no way to configure the fast charge from the charging station. It has to be here.”

“What did Joon Woo say?” Qiyu asked. 

“He said if it isn’t under the Power menu, then it has to be locked under the Admin user.”

Qiyu slammed a hand on the dashboard. “Damn. Why does it have to be locked?”

“Safety reasons. Did you try-”

“Yeah, I already tried logging in. We’re stuck under this fucking Ritesh user, who’s not an admin.”

Sinjin leaned forward. The user interface was littered with settings but her discerning eyes picked up on the operating system version number written at the bottom of the screen. Her pentester’s words drifted to mind. What had he said about this particular operating system again?

She murmured, “I think I know how to get in.”

“It’s all yours then,” Qiyu said.

Sinjin navigated to the login screen. Flexing her fingers, she tried to remember how the pentester had demonstrated the vulnerability to her. Something about injecting a database command to retrieve all the unencrypted user data. 

She typed a test line to see whether the system would react to her maliciously crafted answer. Tapping the Enter button, she sucked in a breath. An error popped up on the screen but it wasn’t the normal “User and password don’t match”. Instead, it said, “Table user doesn’t exist”.

Bingo.

The corner of her lips curled up in a smirk. Behind them, the door to the passenger seats opened. The doctor, his assistant, and the two kids clambered in. Qiyu swiveled around. “Where’s Ah Long?”

“He’s helping Joon Woo with the tire,” Junming answered. 

As the new occupants settled down in the spacious passenger area, Sinjin focused on her task. All she needed to do was guess the table name and grab the list of usernames and passwords. She tried the typical names that developers liked to use. Nothing worked. 

She ground her jaw. Something was missing. A step in the process she had forgotten. 

Hurried footsteps came racing towards them. The door flung open. Joon Woo and Ah Long climbed up, their breath heavy and rattled.

“Is the tire changed?” Qiyu asked.

“Never mind that!”

Sinjin darted a look over her shoulder. Ah Long was on his knees as he searched the passenger seats while Joon Woo made his way to the front. Slapping a palm on Qiyu’s seat, he gestured to the back of the station, his voice fraught with tension. “The dormant zombies in the station woke up. It won’t be long before they see us. Where’s Shula?”

Collective gasps echoed from the back seat. Over the kids’ weeping, Sinjin could now hear the low and muffled sound of growls. Trepidation mounted in her. A dreadful chill reached her numb fingers. Frozen, she could not concentrate on the black characters in front of her on the screen.

The passenger door opened. Shula jumped in, panting heavily as she pulled the door shut behind her. Her hands trembled as she sank low into the seat. “Why aren’t we going yet?!”

“The battery charge is only at 40%.” Qiyu’s voice was frantic, her eyes wide as she looked out the side window at the shadows that flitted past. “Is it even enough-”

“It will have to do.” Shula crept forward. “Let’s go now!”

“No!” Joon Woo protested. “Aqra’s not here yet!”

A burst of cold air whooshed into the truck. Yelping in fear, Sinjin scrambled away from the gaping void where the door once was. As she clambered into the passenger area, a shadow leapt into the truck. Screams tore through the small space. Weapons raised, ready to cut off the head of-

“It’s me!” Aqra raised his hands, palms up.

Sinjin fell to the floor, her legs giving in under her. Relief shot through the group. But only for an instant. Thumps rocked the truck as the dormant zombies converged on them. The screech of claws dragging down the window pane sent a shiver down everyone’s spines. Fear permeated the air as the hungry growls intensified outside. 

“Qiyu, start the damn engine!” Shula barked.

Fumbling for the start button, Qiyu grabbed the steering wheel with one hand. The fire truck rumbled to life. Qiyu slammed on the accelerator. Sinjin was thrown backwards, her body sliding across the floor. She hissed as pain sliced up her arm. A strong hand grabbed her and pulled her up onto the seat.

Through her small eyes narrowed in agony, she saw Ah Long wrap an arm around her and his kid, acting as their seatbelt. She was about to thank him when she realized how slow the truck was moving. Her eyes darted to the front where Shula had replaced Aqra in the front seat.

The woman had taken a knife to the panel beneath the steering wheel, her fingers trembling as she pulled out a jumble of colorful wires, careful not to touch Qiyu’s legs as she stripped off the ends of two red cables. Sinjin was about to call out to her that such old-school techniques would not work on the latest electric vehicles when something clicked in her mind.

She tapped Ah Long’s shoulder and shot him a thumbs-up, signaling she was fine. When his arm retracted, she lunged forward and reached for the dashboard. Instinctively, Shula shrank back into her seat, her lips curling down in frustration. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

Sinjin ignored her and tapped in the command she had forgotten. As soon as she hit the return key, a list of table names popped up. She grinned. That’s what she had forgotten. The spilling of wires from the panel was akin to the enumeration of the tables in the database. If she could get the tables to spill out, then it was just a matter of repeating the old command with the right table name and columns and…

Her fingers flew over the screen. Bingo. Username and password of the root user. In plaintext. 

She keyed it in. Held her breath.

Login successful.

She was in.