A blank stare by all three of them. They didn't quite get the last sentence with the description of section 21.
“All this in cooperation with the Chemistry department. This means that in a way I study the molecules of the living organisms and the chemical reactions in one such organism. And that's why I am interested to see what has happened here,” Dr Courant said.
“Do you think that it's the same thing that happened to the people who came back from the dead?” Fiona asked, trying to sound as innocent as possible.
“I think that there is a connection, yes. In the last days we have received many many reports about humans and animals who come back to life. We think that there is something in the soil that causes their molecules to generate in enormous speeds, giving those dead organisms back their nervous system, internal organs, flesh and skin and ability to breathe. But we don't know what could cause something like this,” Dr Courant said.
“We came face to face with some of these people. They were quite aggressive. We had to use violence in order to keep ourselves safe,” Bruno said.
“Violence! I have seen them, they are harmless. Just some scared, harmless babies in a grownup body.” Dr Courant's face got darker, even if he was trying to remain friendly and polite.
“But, we have seen them attacking and killing people. Some of them bit me very hard. If my wounds hadn't healed by themselves, I could have gotten a severe infection,” Fiona said.
“Imagine being back to life all of a sudden. You are extremely hungry and everything scares you. The only difference from the newborn babies is that they have the strength to defend themselves. And that's what they do. If you treat them well, in a gentle way, they won't hurt you. And, unlike infants, they can learn very fast since their brain is already fully formed.” Dr Courant took a deep breath and looked around. “The army... They only know the way of the weapons. Nobody thought about seeing these people as what they are. People, with needs and fears, ready to be taught and live harmonically among us. But, as usual, when we see something different, we want to kill it, in order to show our superiority. To ensure our false sense of safety by dominating over the weakest. That's why we eat meat, that's why we have wars, that's why real progress is so far away.”
Bruno, Steve and Fiona were listening, unable to say a word. It was obvious that they had touched a sensitive string of Dr Courant's.
“When an infant pulls your hair, no matter how much it hurts or how many hairs it pulls off, you excuse it because it's just a baby and you find it cute. And it is, don't get me wrong. These little persons just came to the planet and they need our total support in order to survive, just like we were supported when we were like them, right? But when the infant is in the body of a grownup, then it's terrifying and has to be killed? I'm so disappointed by our kind,” Dr Courant said and shook his head in dismay.
Bruno, Steve and Fiona felt very awkward and guilty for failing to see that side of the people they had killed so easily, with so much enthusiasm and, sometimes, more than once. Although Fiona was more skeptical. “But if someone doesn't know? Won't she fight for her safety? What would you do if you saw some strange human being, zombie-like, coming right at you, after seeing that they are able to kill and eat you? Don't you think that you judge panicked people too strictly?” she said with her fighting spirit still guiding the power of her opinion.
Dr Courant got calmer. He turned to Fiona. “You know, you are a sweet girl, but don't try so hard to excuse yourself. Sometimes you just have to accept your responsibilities. Do you know that some families unburied their loved ones and a few days later they still keep them at home, safe? Yes, those loved ones will never be the same again, but they were given a second chance to have a family, to learn things from the beginning, to have a life. What if someone just killed them again because they looked 'aggressive' or 'dangerous' or all these pathetic excuses you people invent in order to make yourselves feel better?” Dr Courant wasn't so calm anymore. At that moment, his phone rang, he excused himself in order to answer and he moved a bit away.
“What do we do now? We have angered him,”d Steve sai.
“Oh, you think?” Bruno responded.
“Apparently he has something to do with the zombies. I don't think that he would be so annoyed if he wasn't involved personally. We need to keep him close and see what he knows. Let's try to agree more with him,” Fiona whispered conspiratorially.
“Maybe you should try to agree more. You were the one who was arguing with him, while Bruno is as silent as the triceratops,” Steve said.
“Yes, but you are as heavy,” Bruno answered spontaneously.
“That's so mature. Thank you for being with us,” Steve said.
“You know, I think that this guy was the one whose voice I was listening to in my dream. He was saying 'Leave it alone... Leave it alone...' and then he tased me,” Bruno said while rubbing his chin and thinking.
“The doctor was not with us, as you heard earlier and as we all remember. And you must decide if the voice was saying 'leave us', 'leave them' or 'leave it'. I'm starting to think that you are not very reliable,” Fiona said. And then Dr Courant returned.
“Excuse me for this, I had to take the call. Listen, boys and girl, I would like to apologize for my very strict way of speaking to you. You see, as a Biologist I have dedicated my life in life and I get very angry when it's terminated violently. But also I fail to think as an ordinary person who just tries to defend himself against an unknown threat. And, of course, when I say ordinary, I mean actually those who aren't as expert in a field as I am. In the same manner, I am ordinary myself in other fields that are out of my knowledge. Don't think of me as an elitist,” Dr Courant explained.
“But we are also...” Steve spoke before thinking.
“Doctors?” Dr Courant asked.
“Students,” Steve answered realizing what was coming.
“I took my PhD 20 years ago and you are students. Of course, modesty is great, but let's be realistic here. In this case you have to admit to yourselves that you are ordinary people, as long as you are not yet experts. See this as a piece of advice. It's easier to learn and reach expertise if you acknowledge your ignorance. Only then you can let yourself learn. If you think yourself as an expert just because you are a student or just because you thought about tasing the dinosaurs, you won't have much space in your mind for new knowledge because it will be full with your pride. So, be humble now and you'll have all the time in the world to call yourselves experts when you are indeed experts.”
Steve couldn't argue with that. Dr Courant had become a paternal figure, looking like he had forgotten the anger he had shown a couple of minutes ago. His whole behavior was inspiring trust though, even when he seemed tough and strict, since he wasn't being irrational. But still, for Steve there was no option than to blow Mr Simonnot's head off, to kill those people who weren't people any more, not only because it was so fun to do, but because he had also to protect Bruno, Fiona and himself. There was a serious conflict in his head as he was trying to find out if he had done the right thing.
Dr Courant invited them to keep walking and see the other animals. “Let's walk. It will start getting dark soon and you need to admire these beautiful creatures in the daylight if you want to fully appreciate them.” They saw the various lions and bears, a mammoth, the body of the giant armadillo that didn't make it after all the tasing. But the most admirable was the diplodocus, in all his enormous length and the tons of chains around him with someone constantly feeding him. How could such a massive body be fed without destroying whole ecosystems with each meal? No wonder they were extinct up until now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
What a surprise!
The time was almost 19:00 and it was already quite dark. Although more and more certified scientists were entering the area (the only ones with access, to prevent overcrowding), Bruno, Steve and Fiona were ready to leave after the pleasant and educating walk with Dr Courant. They had actually forgotte
n that they were there in order to find some answers and they had forgotten as well about Antoine Blanchard and his mysterious death.
“I will expect you again tomorrow. We have a lot to study here and I can see that you will become brilliant scientists,” Dr Courant told them at the exit.
“Are we forgetting something?” Bruno asked as they were heading towards the Gare d'Austerlitz metro station.
“Yes, but I don't think that he knows anything after all. Besides, he said it clearly that he wasn't in the team. And he says the truth. I don't remember him,” Fiona repeated.
“He is a very nice guy. He showed us many things. If he wanted to harm us, it would be easy. I'm sure that we can trust him. Even if he doesn't know, he will help us in other ways. We will find who tased you, you'll see,” Steve said, who had liked a lot Dr Courant. Bruno and Fiona agreed. “So, we go to Bastille for a coffee or something?”
“If there's anything left there,” Bruno said.
They passed through the crowd and they kept walking but at the end of Buffon street, they had a surprise. Five men of various heights, all of them pretty tall though, with quite serious and straight faces, appeared and stood in front, blocking the passage. When Bruno, who was walking on the right side, tried to get off the sidewalk and skip the weird guys, one of them moved and blocked him. And so did the others when Steve and Fiona tried to move past them.
“What do we do?” Steve asked without taking his eyes off of the strange guys.
“We turn around and move quickly?” Fiona said while keeping the eye contact with the men with the unsettling seriousness, who would only move in order to ensure that nobody would pass.
So, Bruno, Steve and Fiona turned around and started to walk with fast pacing. The five walking bricks started following them, but not very quickly. Just a few meters away, before reaching the big crowd outside the museum, five more strange men stopped in front of them, effectively surrounding them as the previous line of expressionless faces arrived. The biggest one of the first five tried to grab Fiona, but Bruno punched his arm. His face muscles finally moved and revealed fear and pain. He left a scream that didn't quite represented a known vowel. Instantly, all of them attacked Bruno, Steve and Fiona, who had no weapons on them and they could only defend themselves by kicking and punching, but the big, slow movers were too strong and too many.
After a short struggle, the ten silent men had managed, by using only the strength of their arms, to grab their targets hugging them tight, as if they were sacks with potatoes that had slid from their shoulders, and moved promptly and clumsily towards the building to the other side of the road, opposite to the museum. The hugs were too tight for any of the three to scream for help, the men moved in a formation, so that the ones carrying the captives would be hidden by the others and not noticeable by the crowd and the police and they entered the building without problems.
“Do you think that they are zombies?” Bruno asked, partly with his voice and partly with some air squeezed out of his stomach as the big guy holding him tight against himself like a teddy bear, was walking without caring much about avoiding to crush Bruno's ribs.
“They don't... look... hungry,” Steve answered as they were moving up the stairs.
“Fiona?” Bruno wanted to see if she was OK. There was no response. “Fiona?” he insisted. Still nothing. “Fuckers.” He started moving left and right and tried to kick with his heel the man in front of him, the one who was holding her. He managed to push him a bit before his legs were grabbed by another man, causing him to be carried parallel to the floor and face down, but at least the man holding Fiona had loosened a bit his grip.
Fiona breathed heavily. “Are you OK?”, Bruno asked as they stopped in front of an apartment and one of them rang the doorbell.
“I would love to put his head in a bag,” she said while still panting. They entered the apartment. They moved to a big room with many strange machines. Three computers, many boxes with lights, buttons, antennae, cables, switches. A big table in the middle. Bottles, glasses, vials and display boxes. It felt like some questions were about to be answered.
The men who were carrying them, dropped them on the floor, as clumsily as they did everything up to that moment. After catching their breath, Bruno, Steve and Fiona looked around. “It looks like a lab,” Steve said, stating the obvious.
“Maybe that's what they want us to think and it's actually a forest.” After all they had been through the last couple of days, being attacked and carried by ten silent men looked like something normal, that could happen every day. So Bruno got back his sense of sarcasm quite soon.
“Hello, little scientists,” said a familiar voice behind them. They got up and saw the lady that had joined them in the short dinosaur hunt, walking past them and standing in front, leaning to the table.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
So, we meet again
“It's you! I knew it!” Fiona said triumphantly.
“You knew what, dear?” the lady asked.
“That you were the one turning dead people into zombies! And probably the dinosaurs too!”
“Zombies? You watch too many movies, or maybe you play too many of those computer games. What an imagination you have!” Steve was checking the room while Bruno was looking awkwardly at the floor. “But, zombies? The walk with Dr Courant didn't teach you anything at all?”
“How do you know...” Another meaningless question by Steve, that was interrupted by his own realization that no high-end technology was needed to answer that. “Never mind.”
“I have a tendency to tell my wife everything. You should do it also, it will ensure you will have a successful and happy marriage,” said Dr Courant, who did his own spectacular entrance in the room in a bad-ass, action-movie-villain yet wise and paternal way. “Allow me to introduce you. This is my beloved wife, Dr Juana Renedo, chemist and physicist. My dear, these are Fiona, Steve and Bruno. They are very clever students and I am sure that they will understand well what you are about to explain to them.”
“Let's see what they have to ask first,” Dr Renedo said.
Steve got defensive. “All this was necessary?” he asked while showing outside the room with his thumb.
“It was. We wanted to prove a point,” Dr Renedo responded with a satisfied smile.
“What kind of point?” Steve asked, to get quickly to the answers.
“The boys that brought you here, were brought back to life by us two weeks ago,” Dr Renedo answered. Silence and open mouths. “Take your time, let this thought sit well in your minds,” she said. She smiled at Dr Courant and he smiled back and shook his head in a way that said 'aaah, those children...'. She drank a bit of water from a plastic bottle. “Did they bite you or something?” Dr Renedo asked them, in order to unblock them and get them to talk, but also she wanted to make them see by themselves what she was trying to tell them.
“No, but it was very hard to breathe. They were holding us like we were plastic dolls or something,” Fiona said.
“Yes, because that's how plastic dolls are used,” Steve said and pushed Bruno with his elbow, only to receive a 'dude, what the fuck?' look.
“The important thing is that they didn't hit you and they didn't try to eat you. They just did what they were told to do. No violence was needed by anyone,” Dr Renedo said.
“No violence? But it's not like we were invited via e-mail,” Steve said.
“Man, let the woman talk!” Bruno said, worried by Steve's remarks and afraid that they might miss the chance to get the answers or maybe face an even worse fate.
“No excessive violence, then. I can see that you are just fine,” Dr Renedo said calmly, like her husband did while he was walking near the dinosaurs with the three students.
“Why are you pretending to be so nice today? When we came last night, you weren't very happy to see us,” said Fiona, who was still bitter about this and she wasn't willing to forget so easily.
“Oh, I'm not pretending, dear. You mis
understood me. Last night, at the museum, I felt like we were trusting our luck to three children while there were police forces just outside. If you didn't have Mr Blanchard with you, I don't think that I would follow you,” Dr Renedo said.
“What? Seriously?” Fiona asked.
“No. The truth is that I didn't want you to hurt the dinosaurs, as you eventually did. Those tasers are brutal devices, aimed to use on criminals and not on innocent animals whose only mistake was that they were hungry,” Dr Renedo replied kindly but aggressively. “By the way, I have to apologize to Bruno for tasing him.”
Three pairs of eyes opened wide. Fiona was ready to start shouting triumphantly when Dr Renedo continued talking.
“It was the only thing I could think of, to make you abort this crazy mission. We would all get killed and tasing the leader looked like the fastest way to stop you from going on with this brutality,” Dr Renedo said apologetically.
“He could have died! I knew it was you after all!” Fiona shouted.
“No, he couldn't. It was set to give the smallest possible amount of electricity. Bruno was just tired and he slept. He hadn't passed out really. Right, Bruno?” Dr Renedo asked in a sweet way, almost singing his name.
Bruno was looking left and right, unable to hide his face expression of a caught child. Fiona looked at him angrily and turned back to Dr Renedo.
“And the people? What about the people? You didn't think about them at all? There are houses just outside the museum. Even your own lab could have been in serious danger,” said Fiona who was looking desperately for a chance to prove Dr Renedo wrong and win the argument.
“There is no food this side of the museum. Predictably, they went towards the garden which is full of trees and plants. Our carnivore friends could go to the zoo to help themselves to a meal. No harm for people. You see?”
Halfway back - Bruno, Steve and Fiona's adventure against zombies that may not be zombies and the secret behind them Page 11
