Z-Boat (Book 2): Z-Topia

by Suzanne Robb

  Ally turned around with an incredulous look on her face. Perhaps she’d misjudged the captain.

  “I hope you have a really good sense of humor, because as to why I would stay in sick bay with a goddamn zombie is an absolute mystery to me.”

  A look of shock shimmered across his face, and he glanced to Karen for confirmation. “Karen, what the hell is Carl doing?”

  “Mary got infected while feeding those things down below. He wanted to keep her in sick bay so when we docked whoever came to pick them up wouldn’t find her. Then he planned to infect the new arrival, a deal of some kind for fresh zombies.”

  The captain rubbed a hand across his face, stopping to fidget with his beard. He glanced to the left out of a small window. Ally realized they were skimming along the surface of the water and not coasting underneath. A vista of brownish water with trash floating around spanned for miles.

  “I’m sorry ’bout that. I had no idea what he was doing. We’ve been kind of busy with everything that’s happening on the mainland, searching for runaways and survivors, and then we received an SOS from a submersible.”

  Ally didn’t know where to start. Did someone get off the Betty Loo and make it to the submersible, or worse yet did something get off the Betty Loo? Second, runaways from what? Carl implied people were leaving the mainland, and the good captain here was scooping them up, only to find out too late they were infected. The cargo hold full of the walking dead was proof enough of that.

  “Did you find the submersible? Do you know what submarine it came from? Were there any survivors on board?” Thoughts of Marcus making it out at the last minute flooded her mind, her heart swelled with hope.

  “Whoa, slow down. We didn’t find anything. By the time we got to the coordinates there was nothing there. The reading indicated it was from a Russian sub, The Peacemaker.”

  Ally felt her heart shatter all over again, of course there were no survivors. Marcus had been bitten right in front of her. She should know better than to hope.

  “Why do you have a cargo hold full of zombies? Those things need to be put down. Every minute you keep them alive you risk the lives of every crew member under your command.”

  The captain shifted his gaze, his posture indicating he was uncomfortable with the line of questioning. “It’s not by choice, trust me, but how else are we going to cure what’s happening if we don’t study them? We have to reverse it, try and cure it or we’re screwed.”

  “What do you mean? Reverse what? You think this can be undone?”

  The captain walked over to the display panel. He hit a few buttons and a screen lit up to the right of Ally. A map of the world appeared, almost ninety percent of it red, the other ten percent blue.

  “You know what this is?”

  Ally nodded, looking for a pattern. There were darker red spots with rings extending outward.

  “You’re looking at the new world, over the last couple of months ‘outbreaks’ as they call them have been occurring all over the world. People have no idea where to go, so they’re shipping out, literally. My job is to collect them, problem is by the time I get to them it’s too late.”

  “No kidding, it’s in the water. The ocean is the last place they should go.” Ally mumbled this more to herself, but the captain overheard.

  “What was that? What do you know about all this?” He demanded.

  “I know I stand a better chance of living if I keep a few things to myself. Could you put the dates up when they first appeared?”

  Ally looked at the captain, his expression surprised. Most likely he expected her to fall all over herself to please him, but she was not about to kowtow to some two bit captain who hauled around zombies for profit.

  He turned away from her and did as asked. A pattern emerged, the places with the first problems were the ones that produced food, or had rich people who could afford to pay for clean water.

  Based on these projections, most of the upper class, farmers, and anyone who ate the produce from those areas was infected. Ally smiled to herself, at least she would have an easier time taking out the bastards responsible for ruining her life. The firms were probably falling apart, and if she was really lucky their figureheads were infected.

  The time had come for the giants to fall. The question was who would rise to fill their shoes? She sure as hell hoped it would be zombies.

  “You do know there’s no cure, and whoever has you collecting them is going to use them for something else, something terrible.”

  The captain seemed to debate what she said for a moment. He stared at her, one of those annoying assessment types.

  “How do you know so much about all this stuff? Who the hell are you, really?”

  “I was serving on a sub hired to go on a search and rescue, we ran into a bunch of zombies instead. Oh yeah, and a bomb destroyed it, probably why you didn’t find anything when you received to the coordinates.”

  Ally watched the captain’s expression go from one of irritation to shock.

  “So you’ve been at sea for almost five weeks? How the hell did you survive?”

  Ally smiled. “Revenge is a wonderful motivator to resist death when it comes knocking.”

  The captain chuckled as he walked over to a drawer. She watched as he opened it and reached in. Her instincts told her to take him down before he pulled out a gun and killed her. She restrained herself, but only barely.

  “Well, you deserve this then.”

  The captain turned with a bottle of off color whiskey and two dirty shot glasses. Ally relaxed and forced herself to take a deep breath. Just because the doctor was insane, didn’t mean the captain was too. He motioned to Karen, and the other man who had yet to look at Ally, to leave the room.

  The door protested on its hinges as it shut, and the two were left alone. He walked over to a clear spit and she joined him. The captain sat in a chair and kicked one out for her. Ally gratefully sat, her fatigue catching up to her.

  She held the small shot glass he handed her, waiting for him to drink first. An old habit she learned from her time with the militia. The only friend she made in her time there gave her several tips that served her well over the years.

  The captain looked her over with a critical eye. His not so subtle sizing her up was getting annoying. The drink still untouched on the table in front of him. She lowered her hands and let him appraise her. Far too tired to explain herself, and not really caring what this guy thought of her. If he deemed undead cargo as was a way to make a living, she didn’t think he had a right to judge anyone.

  * * *

  Charlie moved out from behind the desk, he wasn’t leaving until the data stick was full. He glanced at it for a second, a hair past the halfway mark. The man known as Henry lunged at him and Charlie elbowed him across the face, it felt like he’d hit a block of marble. Wincing in pain Charlie backed off and picked up an office chair. He swung with all he was worth.

  A loud crack and the zombie’s mandible flew across the room shattering against the window. Teeth fell out, trickling to the ground. The zombie didn’t give up though. His tongue lolling out, stringy bits of what resembled muscle dangled from his mouth. He tried to latch onto Charlie once again.

  The snapping effect lost when there was nothing on the bottom. Charlie grabbed the tongue and yanked. The whole thing came out, almost a foot of thin muscle with a greenish tint at the end.

  Throwing it to the side, he continued to wrestle with the Henry zombie. He forgot they were stronger when new and well fed. Fluids flowed out of its mouth and Charlie maneuvered himself so most of it missed him.

  In a move he didn’t expect, the zombie tripped him by putting a leg behind him. A second later he found himself lying flat on the desk, a drooling zombie on top of him. He struggled to twist his neck as the thing moved in to try to dig into his head using his top teeth. The data stick in sight, over ninety percent full. Only a couple more minutes and he could get out of here.

  Gathering his reserves, Charl
ie rolled the zombie over and jammed one arm underneath the thing’s neck to keep it in place, with his other hand he reached for the knife on his belt. He rammed it into Henry’s eye, more green-tinted fluid and pus squirted onto him.

  Thank God he kept the mask on. He didn’t take any chances when it came to risking contamination. As the zombie writhed beneath him, he twisted the blade making sure the brain was nothing but mush when finished.

  Charlie let out a shaky breath as he stood. He tapped his implant.

  “I’m going down to the meet point, where is everyone at?”

  “We’re all good to go, sir, scientists have been taken care of, waiting for you.”

  “Be there in three minutes.”

  He grabbed the data stick and ran out of the office. They had a lot to do and not much time to pull it off.

  Chapter Five—

  Megan Roark slammed her communication device down. She’d never been so irritated in her life. First she lost contact with her spy on board the Betty Loo, then she finds out via the media that the damn sub blew up. The data she wanted lost forever until she got intel someone might have survived, scooped up by someone else.

  She knew whoever they found was off limits for now, but she would get her chance. She’d make damn sure of it. No way was she going to let an opportunity to discredit the Russians slip through her hands again. She picked up the communication device and keyed in a number. A moment later the other end picked up.

  “What?”

  “It’s me. There was a survivor, a female, picked up by a sub a little over a week ago. It might be our person, keep an eye on things and let me know the minute you find out who it is.”

  Megan clicked off and tossed the small metal rectangle on her desk. So many people had those implants, but not her. No way would she let anyone jack into her signal and spy. As soon as she could hold a pair of pliers she ripped the damn thing out. Her parents were livid, and when the doctor explained the damage made it impossible for another one to be installed, little Megan smiled in victory. No one would ever track, monitor, or eavesdrop on her.

  Now for the people under her authority, it was an entirely different story. As leader of the main North Korean firm, and therefore the country itself, she needed to know exactly what people were doing and thinking at all times.

  At birth mandatory implants were required, and all of them sent a direct signal to a satellite that compiled the information on a ship. A place in constant movement was better than even the most heavily guarded stationary location. Megan’s predecessors were not fools, they learned from those around them and stole when necessary. They didn’t see a line in the sand, so crossing it was never an issue. This was why they were one of the super powers.

  She read over the red flagged message she’d received earlier. More zombies, lots of outbreaks, millions dead, blah, blah, blah. What the hell was she supposed to do? She didn’t start this whole “undead issue,” why should she be the one to clean it up. Then again Henry wasn’t returning her calls, and if her informants were right, his firm had been infected.

  That left her and Joseph Erdman, the head of the Israeli firm. Megan knew it would only be a matter of time before people panicked and accused her of not doing anything. Of course she wasn’t, they needed to decrease their numbers drastically in order to ration out what bits of food they could to the poor.

  A show of good faith would go a long way, and since none of the other firm members had done it, she would look like she actually cared. She punched a button on her desk.

  “Make me an appointment with whatever reporter can get me the best coverage, and doesn’t ask the wrong questions. Price is not an issue.”

  She removed her finger and smiled to herself. Yes, she would look like a leader who cared, a leader that gave a damn about her people. In the mean time she calculated how much money she saved with each new death. Her estimations put a value of keeping alive one of her citizens for an average life span of fifty years at a little over a million dollars. If the current tally was right, she’d save over five billion next year.

  * * *

  Ally wondered if the captain understood he would never outwait her. She mastered patience long ago, and someone like him, who knew how he got the captain title. Did he buy it? Did he know how to tie a slip knot? Most people took the title they wanted, and others followed. A system set in place long ago, one people were too afraid to try to change lest a hired thug from one of the firms show up in the middle of the night to set them straight.

  On the Betty Loo, Brian Kingston was the guy in charge. He’d never been on a submarine when he bought it. He slapped on an old hat, called himself captain, and people thought he earned it. Looking out the window she realized in the end he did earn it. He went down with the sub, and saved her in the process. If she got the information on the data chip into the right hands even more deaths would be prevented.

  “You don’t talk much do you?”

  Snapped out of her reverie, Ally looked over at the captain. He held the small glass in his hand and swirled the amber colored liquid around before downing it. She took it as an indication he didn’t plan on drugging her and downed her shot. The burning sensation on the way down reminded her why she didn’t drink often. The warm sensation that hit her reminded her why she did on occasion.

  “I like that in a person, talking’s overrated.”

  Ally rolled the small glass in her hand, waiting for him to continue. She could tell by the look in his eyes he needed to get something off his chest.

  “I’ve been doing this for twenty years, never had to carry cargo like this before.”

  Ally nodded, and then placed the glass on the small table. She glanced out the window, the sun must be setting, not that you could tell. The only sign was a slight darkening of the sky above them. She wished the Betty Loo’s control room had one of these, but it wasn’t safe. This captain must only take boat and island rescues, because going deep was not an option regardless of what kind of reinforcement he had.

  “I’m not a bad guy, you know. My family needs food. I have a crew to pay.”

  “I know how that all works, it still doesn’t justify carrying around a boat full of rotting corpses,” Ally said.

  “You have no idea what it was like. You were out here, or on your submarine. The world changed overnight. One day things were crappy as usual, the next they were hellish. People turning into mindless monsters, the first to get eaten were the homeless. Of course no one cared about that. The lower class was the next to go. After more than one hundred million poor bastards were gobbled up around the world, the upper class took notice.”

  “Why weren’t the upper class infected too?” Ally asked, unsure her theory worked based on this new information.

  “Oh, they were, just covered it up. Secluded themselves off so well that when people broke into their high rises and guarded towers they found zombies trapped inside. The few members of the elite took off and hid after that.”

  Ally tilted her head as she looked at the captain. “Then who’s running the firms, the countries, the world? Who asked you to go and collect these things?”

  The captain looked at his empty glass, the indecision of telling her the truth written all over his face.

  “I don’t know, I think it was a firm, but not from any of the main countries. I think it might be an American one.”

  Ally laughed, was the guy a lightweight? “You can’t be serious, there hasn’t been an American firm in over a hundred and twenty years.” she said.

  He looked at her, his eyes cold. “I’m absolutely serious. I think while Israel, North Korea, and Russia have been trying to sabotage and spy on one another an American coalition banded together.”

  A pit formed in Ally’s stomach. She knew what group would have those aspirations: the one that trained her, taught her everything she knew. They were assassins, bombers, and high level thugs. If they were the up and coming super power the world would never be the same.

  “
What makes you think it’s an American firm?”

  The captain poured himself another drink and refilled her glass as well. “The way the guy talked, what he wanted and why, and where he wanted the cargo left. I know a lot of firms operate out of the United States, but the place we’re docking isn’t firm regulated.”

  Ally felt the tingling sensation on the back of her neck. The one that let her know something was happening and to sit up and pay attention.

  “What did the guy sound like? You know tons of people vacated the United States during the economic depression. Now everyone sounds the same, one big melting pot of languages.”

  Ally needed something specific, a phrase, or some sort of procedure the firm in question was making the captain follow. Then she would know for sure, even if she didn’t want to.

  “Look, I’m just telling you what I think. He said a few things, and was anal retentive about how we do the meet. I have a list as long as my leg of rules to follow when I get into harbor.”

  Ally reached back and rubbed the hairs sticking up on the back of her neck. “What kind of protocols? How much can there be? Dock the sub, unload the cargo.”

  The captain shook his head. “Right, but not with this guy. I have to radio in ten minutes before I arrive, then look for a light, that’s the slip I dock in. After, I wait until they use the pressure clamps to secure me. None of the crew is to be below deck. Approximately sixty minutes after I dock, the clamps will be released and the money will be in my account. Then I am to return to sea for at least one week and never return here again.”

  Ally snatched the glass from the table in front of her. Crap! She needed to get the hell off this thing, or at least hide while he was around. How in the hell did he get so far up the ladder in just a few years? If he laid eyes on her, he’d kill her. She grabbed the bottle and took a swig.

  “How far out from docking are you?”