by L. H. Tide
The redhead little girl then stopped, horrified. They were there, around the corner!
Dozens of them, walking everywhere around the woman and the girl. Some of them slowed down and watched them.
“Are you alright?” asked the young Japanese woman, visibly worried. Red watched her as if she was insane or, at least, an unconscious person. And then she looked again around and felt stupid.
These were not living dead, but human beings, all alive… She had, for so long, been used to only seeing crowds of undead everywhere, in places and cities long abandoned, that the old survival reflex had come back, like a wave of fear. These people were just walking everywhere, continuing their everyday activities, and her strange reaction was being found bizarre. Feeling scrutinized by more and more of the gawkers, she returned her attention to her guide.
“Yes… I’m OK, excuse me,” answered the girl, embarrassed. She added, “You wanted to show me something, if I remember well?”
“To show you? Oh, of course, it’s this.” The young woman pointed out a building in front of them, and the little girl widened her eyes.
Red, her head upturned, was astonished, not only by the building that she was watching, but also, far above it, by the huge dome which protected the inhabitants of the Community from the climatic variations of the outside… but of course, above anything else, from the zombies. Mei had already explained to her that it was a Buckminster Fuller dome, able to withstand the highest storms imaginable. Thanks to it, the loss of water by evaporation was also avoided, since it condensed inside as mist on its interior surface. It finished trickling downwards, flowing into round concentric gutters at the base of the dome.
And water was the most precious element in the Community… along with food, of course.
The agro-building wasn’t an abandoned, dull grey-ish building like the ones in which she and her parents had hidden multiple times. It was, on the contrary, a firework display of colors, mainly dominated by the color green.
Behind huge windows which covered its surface, she could see many levels of plants, for example some trees, bushes, and traces of colors that she guessed were flowers and fruits.
“You’re fascinated by the agro-building, I can see,” said Mei, interrupting the thoughts of the little girl. “This is our main source of food, despite all the buildings of the Community, which produce part of our daily rations too. Let’s enter, I’ll show you.”
The red-headed girl followed her host inside the building. Automatic double-leaf doors opened when they arrived in front of them. They both entered, Red being fascinated while seeing them both close after they had passed through. When they accessed the ground floor, Red was astonished by the number of plants around her. Flowers of diverse colors blossomed everywhere on the branches of relatively high trees and, also, depending on the species, even fruits maturing.
“Hi, Larry.”
“Hello, Mei.” This voice surprised Red, who couldn’t see anyone.
An old black man wearing a kind of green tracksuit, with a very warm smile, appeared from behind a tree and walked toward them. He shook hands with Mei and, when it was Red’s turn, held her hand during a longer time in his. Red watched her hand and, then, the face of the man that was filled with curiosity. He was studying her in detail. Finally, he let go of her hand, and said, “So, you’re Red, the latest citizen of the Community. I’m glad to know you, and welcome you to my modest workplace.”
“Modest, modest, you shouldn’t be so shy, Larry, you realize miracles here every day!” intervened the young Japanese woman. The old man seemed suddenly a bit abashed and, Red was sure about it, if he had had been born with white skin, he would probably have blushed.
“Oh, I do my best to assure sufficient food for everyone. But food isn’t the only thing my colleagues and me give to people here, it’s also the possibility of enjoying the beauty of nature… safely!”
The child looked around more attentively; she saw, cutting or watering here and there, a few other men and women. They were wearing the same kind of green uniform as their interlocutor, many of them much younger than him. She also saw, further away, in the middle of some trees, a couple sitting on a park bench, smooching. She also saw, near her, an apple tree with many beautiful red fruits on it. Attracted, she approached it, followed by the woman and the man, who looked at her, curious. She also observed, amidst green leaves which showed that the tree was sufficiently well hydrated, a juicy apple, hanging on a low branch within her range. The fascination of the child made the old man and Mei smile.
“You want to eat it?” asked the old man, who was standing near her again, following her gaze. “You can eat it, if you wish,” he added kindly.
Red reached out and caught between two fingers an orange, black-dotted ladybird, which was on a leaf near the apple, and put it in her mouth. The two adults’ smiles disappeared, and they were even jaw-dropped when the child chewed noisily, the shell of the insect resisting a bit between her teeth.
She finally stopped chewing and swallowed, then smiling while watching them.
The old man became somber and, after making sad eye contact with the young woman, said, “I was talking about the apple.”
“Really?” The little girl seemed embarrassed, and added, “Sorry… I did as usual, when I was hungry.”
The agro-engineer watched her with even more sadness for a few seconds, saying nothing, and finally, added with a soft voice, “You didn’t often eat meat or, generally, any other source of animal proteins, when you were outside with your parents, I imagine?”
“Rarely,” answered Red, who finally picked the apple and bit into it avidly. Munching, she smiled at him and added, “Your apples are delicious.”
“I hope so,” the engineer answered with a wry smile. “Next time, ask me before you want to eat one of my insects. They are the gardener’s friends: this ladybug you ate, which has Asian origins, eats aphids, which tend to devastate crops.”
“I promise,” the little red-haired girl murmured, smiling innocently while watching him with her green eyes. The old man acknowledged by nodding, and his warm smile returned.
Then Red raised her head and looked at the ceiling, which was at least forty-five feet over them. Larry followed her gaze and asked, “What are you looking at?”
“Are there trees on the other levels?”
“No, many fruit-producing trees, like apple, apricot, orange, and lemon trees have been planted only here, at the first level, because their weight, with the necessary fertile ground for their big roots, would be too much for one of the levels over us.”
“I saw some vegetation on the other levels, when I was outside.”
“Yes, some are blackberry and blueberry bushes, but mainly, those levels are for the hydroponics.”
“Hydro…” the little girl frowned while trying to pronounce correctly.
“Hydroponics.”
“I’m sure Red would love to visit some of the upper levels,” said Mei, smiling, and the little girl smiled back, nodding.
“Let’s go,” added Larry, and they followed him to an elevator, which, noisy and slow, brought them at the second level.
When the doors of the elevator opened, cackles of poultry kind of greeted them. They walked in the middle of a row of wheat, growing on hydroponics boards, supplied with water via piping.
But the child’s attention was more attracted by a closed wooden hen house, from which came the noise they could hear. She asked, “You’ve got hens?”
“Yes, many,” answered the black man, “and of course, we also have a few roosters, but also some rabbits in that hutch,” he added, his smile becoming even warmer.
“Rabbits?” This brought a shine to the girl’s eyes, who asked, “Can I see them?”
“Of course, but don’t eat them now, they’re for the Community: chickens and rabbits grow much faster than cows and with much less water and food. They make an easier source of protein for all of us.”
Disgust appeared on
Red’s face, and the two adults suddenly understood that her lack of empathy for insects didn’t include rabbits.
“You can even caress the bunnies if you want,” added Mei, and seeing Red’s warm smile, she accompanied her with the old gardener to the rabbit’s house.
Red was dazzled by the light, nevertheless she tried to keep her eyes open, as she had been asked. The small lamp illuminated one eye, then the other...
And the light went out at once.
Colored dots danced before her eyes, forcing her to blink several times, until her sight re-adapted to the ambient light illuminating the doctor's office.
The doctor whose face she could see again, now that the dancing dots were beginning to disappear…
A face she regretted seeing again, even though she had only known him for a few minutes.
Red had not liked Doctor Theodore Harding at all, when Mei had introduced him to her.
"Doctor Mengele," as many of the Community had nicknamed him, had analyzed her from head to toe, as if she was an interesting insect.
He looked at her with his cold, grey eyes, through his large metal-rimmed glasses. He had a disturbing smile with large, too well aligned white teeth.
The smile of a freak, she thought.
They looked at each other with a lot of intensity, the atmosphere becoming more and more lively.
"How is she, Professor?" Mei asked, almost startling the man and the child, who both turned their heads to her.
Smiling, the ravishing young Asian woman looked at them in turn, without seeming to have noticed the animosity growing between them.
"She's fine, considering that she’s a child who didn’t always eat enough to satisfy her hunger, since her birth," said the man, adding, "A lack of vitamins may have affected her growth, but now that she lives in the Community, I think she’ll be fine, let me tell you."
"I am delighted to learn that, Professor," said the young woman with joy. "You see, Red, we’re lucky here in the Community; better than a doctor, we have a professor of medicine watching over our health!"
"I’m a professor, yes, specialized in virology, to be more precise," the scientist said, a note of pride in his voice.
"Thank you for everything, Professor," said the young woman, while leaving her chair, bowing slightly.
"You’re welcome, it will be a pleasure to watch over her," said the man, awkwardly trying to imitate her, bowing stiffly. He had said that in a vaguely worrisome tone, showing a more carnivorous smile than ever, while Mei, smiling, passed through the door of his office, with the worried, red-haired girl. "I’ll watch her over closely, very closely, you can count on me to do that..."
The little girl slammed the door in his face, so that she neither saw nor heard him again.
***
Demonstration
The Administrator Adams witnesses here the test of the ultimate weapon against the living dead... But may the cure be worse than the disease?
Joshua Adams had to admit that the huge laser gun was impressive.
All the resources which were necessary to build it were impressive too, his bean-counter mind made him almost say to the technicians near him, who were working on it.
But he refrained from doing it; after all, they had worked so hard on it, and didn’t need to be put off, after all the effort they had put in this project.
“Where’s the target?” he asked, looking in a tough way at the team manager.
“Connect this one,” a technician said to the young Asian engineer wearing a white shirt and a tie, who was making the last connections on a console connected to the device. He operated a few controls and then the cubic metallic box rotated, with a glass-like cylinder protruding in front of it. He made it stop its movement, making it aim at an archery target, with its characteristic concentric circles.
Adams frown squinted, trying to see it more easily, dozens of meters away, at the back of the huge room where they were all standing.
The administrator looked more attentively at the target and added, “Impressive, Dr. Lee… if it works, of course.”
“I’m sure it will do the job, just give us a few more seconds to prepare. This weapon is the ultimate defense against zombies, the final solution: it will burn them like torches when they approach, no more ammunition needed, just energy, which is given to us by the sun and the wind!”
“I hope so, after all the resources you asked for to complete this project. Go!” Adams answered coldly.
The engineer harangued one of his technicians wearing a black tracksuit, like the others. The man approached and, stressed, helped him to set the last connections.
After a few minutes, the young Asian man said, smiling timidly to the man in white, “Here we go.”
“At last, I almost had to wait!” answered the administrator in a harsh way, paraphrasing Louis XIV of France. Lee looked furtively at him and then, concentrating his attention on a few switches, he pressed a big red button.
The big glass-like cylinder suddenly emitted a red glow and a big laser beam of the same color hit the center of the target, where a blinding red spot appeared.
And nothing else happened…
The old administrator’s face displayed a dubious frown and, turning around with a mocking smile when his gaze crossed the engineer’s, he said, “Well, I must admit that your technological toy is accurate... it’s a shame that it doesn’t do anything more useful…”
“Look before telling that!” shouted the Asian with pain in his voice, pointing at the target with his index finger.
Adams turned around again to observe, aghast, the target. Its center was, undoubtedly, beginning to release fumes into the air. Adams also listened, having the impression that there was something making a little noise. A tiny buzz could be heard.
“Yeeeeees, you see, it works!” Lee shouted enthusiastically.
“Yes, it’s burning,” admitted the old man, who was beginning to be fascinated by the accumulation of dark smoke coming from the target, far away.
That’s when he turned around again, sniffing, and he added, “Hey, something’s burning!”
“Yes, the target,” continued the young Asian, who, fascinated, was concentrating on its center, and he added, “Look!”
Flames had begun to ‘eat’ the center of the target, flames which were spreading quickly over its whole surface. Tony Lee was ecstatic.
“That’s it!” The buzz became louder.
“Fire!” someone shouted.
“I know,” Lee answered.
“Fire!” the technician next to him yelled louder, and that’s when the engineer understood that a lot of smoke and flames were in fact coming out of the metallic box from which the laser was protruding. The dark smoke produced by the weapon and by the archer target, which was completely burning now, was quickly pervading the enclosed room. The technicians and the engineer began to unplug the laser canon. Stress could be sensed in the darkening room, while the old administrator began to walk backwards, slowly but surely, toward the nearest exit.
All of a sudden, a deafening ringing alarm tone was heard, replacing the now louder buzz emitted by the gun. Sprinklers on the ceiling came into operation and began to disperse water in the room.
“Stop it!” Adams shouted at Lee, approaching the exit, which was closed by a robust-looking door.
“I can’t stop it, it’s blocked on ‘FIRE MODE’!” yelled back the engineer, who was pressing compulsively the big red button, which remained lit.
“I’m going to unplug it!” shouted the technician near him, and putting a handkerchief on his nose and mouth, to avoid breathing the dark smoke, he came closer to the big cable connecting the laser cannon to the nearest wall outlet.
Lightning flashed with a sound of thunder from the surface of the box of the gun, which was drenched in the water continuing to spill from the ceiling. All of a sudden, the weapon had bumps and began to move in all directions, sweeping the room with its red laser beam, the buzz now so loud that it shouted
over the alarm.
The gun turned abruptly and its beam hit the dark tracksuit of the technician, igniting it. The man began to yell as the flames ran quickly over the whole synthetic cloth, fire beginning to burn his hair too.
Joshua Adams ran toward the exit door and pushed it violently, escaping this nightmare. Before the door had slammed back behind him he had a glimpse of the technicians and Dr. Lee, running in all directions in the dark fog which had invaded the room. The laser gun continued to turn around in all directions, firing everywhere, setting fire to two more technicians.
The old administrator entered the nearby corridor and stopped, bending, panting. He cleared his throat and coughed, his once beautiful white suit and tie now grey colored and soaked.
The door slammed open and hit the adjacent wall, startling Adams. The administrator saw Lee and a technician join him in the corridor. Just before the door closed behind them he spotted only darkness and black fog, from which red laser beams were shooting in all directions, its buzz deafening now.
Fire workers wearing yellow clothing came, running with a fire hose, ready to enter the room from which came the sounds of the alarm and the buzz combined.
“Stop!” their chief suddenly yelled to them, a rather fat, but old and experienced chief, a mobile phone glued to an ear. He yelled in it, “Shut down the power of experimental hall #4, quick!”
A few seconds passed by while the noise of the alarm and buzz became even more deafening, and all of a sudden, silence returned.
“Leave this corridor, please!” the fire chief yelled at Adams, Lee, and the technicians. Seeing they were obeying him, he lowered the visor of his firefighter helmet and entered the room, where the red color of the laser beam had been replaced by the reddish and orange colors of numerous flames. He inundated the room with a fire hose, his men following him inside.
