Fleeing the fleas!

<snip>
“Rats!” Alex screamed.
“Rats?”
A swarm of a hundred rats came through the door towards them. Black rats. Plague carrying rats.
“Did that gentleman just spread the bubonic plague just to attack us?” Seymour questioned, before turning his wheelchair around and following the others as the plague rats nipped at his wheels.
</snip>

Alex skidded around the nearest corner at full pelt, closely followed by Cass and Efof, Seymour, way behind them, shrieking like a big girl as several of the rats leaped up into his lap
“Help me!” he wailed, as Alex slid to a halt in front of the large door at the end of the corridor “Help me!”
“Smeg that” Alex snorted as he thumbed the door’s access panel “There’s no way I’m catching the plague!”
He thumbed the access panel again
Nothing happened
“Open that smegging door!” Cass shouted at him as she and Efof approached at full sprint
Alex hammered the door’s controls again but to no avail
“It’s locked” he snapped, a note of desperation edging into his voice as he examined the door controls “I think this is an iris scanner!”
“Aw, smeg’s sake!” Cass sighed as she skidded to a halt and turned to glance back down the corridor at Seymour wheeling along as fast as he could manage at the head of the horde of rats
“Is that bad?” Efof asked
“Any lock’s bad” Cass smiled humourlessly as she pulled a handheld terminal out of her pocket “Go and help Seymour Efof, I should be able to hack this”
“But what about the plague?”
“You’re not human, remember? Chances are it won’t affect you”
“Oh, ok” Efof shrugged and turned to jog away back down the corridor
With Efof gone, Cass gave Alex a quick sidelong glance and stepped up to the door to stare into the iris scanner, the door’s locking bolts immediately slamming back into their housings before the door hissed open
“How did...?” Alex began, but Cass just shook her head and swept past him
“Gangway!” Efof shouted, his added impetus propelling him and Seymour well ahead of the rats and, as Alex stepped aside, through the door into the room beyond
Puzzled at what he had just seen, Alex hurried after them and sealed the entrance behind him
“…filthy disgusting things” Seymour was saying
“It’s the fleas that spread the disease” Cass frowned, making sure she kept well away from him “But I don’t think we should take any chances – We need to quarantine ourselves and get dosed up with antibiotics as soon as is practical”
A nearby explosion rocked the base
“What the hell was that?”

<tag / tbc>