Z 2135

by Wright, David W.

  Shit.

  Jonah started to turn around, heart racing, expecting to be outed.

  The man would know he was an impostor. He was seconds from discovery, a minute from death.

  Voice friendly, the man called, “Hey, you must be new. I’m surprised they put us both on shift, especially without introducing us.” The man laughed, and held his hand out for Jonah.

  The Watcher said, “They sure do some funny things sometimes! I’m Andy, good to meet you.”

  In Jonah’s ear: “This man is a threat, eliminate him.”

  “No,” Jonah said quietly.

  “Pardon me?” Andy the Watcher asked.

  “Nothing,” Jonah said, smiling awkwardly as he tried to pass.

  Again in his ear, but louder. More insistent: “Don’t be a fool, Jonah. This man is dead already. Do your job—finish him, then go to the rear car, tell the conductor to slow down, and jump off the train.”

  Jonah ran instead.

  The Watcher called out, “Hey!”

  Jonah raced through the doors and into the next car, people turning to look at him as he ran through without stopping. The Watcher screamed, “Hey!” as his boots pounded the train’s metal floor behind Jonah.

  Jonah raced ahead, not knowing what the hell he was going to do. He couldn’t jump to instant death, and had to live long enough to ensure that Sutherland kept up with his part of the deal—that he’d not harm Ana.

  As Jonah bolted into the next car, a large man was making his way toward him, headed either to the bathroom or back to his seat.

  The aisle was too narrow, and the Watcher too close behind, his footsteps now pounding a few feet away.

  Jonah leapt at the man blocking the aisle and threw him into the coming Watcher.

  Jonah bought himself a few seconds, and kept going.

  He pushed through the next doors.

  The old man was in his ear.

  “What’s happening? The camera feed is stuttering.”

  “I’m running!” Jonah shouted.

  An arc of blue light flashed by, crashing into the roof above, sending fractured, burnt metal chips flying at him.

  Shit.

  Jonah reached into his holster, rolled to the ground, and came up aiming back at his pursuer, squeezing a shot as he did.

  He missed, blasting a wide hole in an elderly woman wearing a garish yellow-and-orange dress. Jonah corrected his aim, and pulled the trigger twice, hitting the Watcher once in the knee, and a second time in the chest.

  The Watcher screamed as he fell, moments from death. The old woman in the dress looked down, mouth agape, eyes widening at her incinerated chest as life left her body and her body slumped over.

  An alarm’s blare filled the car, a repeating and deafening bray. Jonah saw the last thing in the world he wanted, or expected, to see—a hunter orb zipping through the aisle in the car behind him, turning its camera eyes on the passengers.

  Jonah stared at the orb through two sets of windows—it had yet to spot him in the next car.

  He had to move quickly before it came. His blaster was no match for the hunter orb, unless he managed to get off the luckiest shots of his life before being vaporized.

  Jonah kept moving forward, smashed through the next set of doors, pushed a woman out of his way, apologized with a grunt, and kept on, into the next car, racing toward the train’s rear.

  What now?

  Jonah had planned on ordering the conductor riding in the rear car to slow enough so that he could jump, but if the orb sensed the train slowing or spotted Jonah jumping, it would chase him down and leave him dead. Out in the open, in the land outside the train, Jonah would last only seconds.

  He kept moving forward, glancing back at the orb, which was quickly scanning people as it made its way through the car. He saw a man pointing forward, at Jonah, directing the orb toward him.

  Jonah pushed through the next set of doors, and then he saw that the doors into the car ahead were already open. Two people stood in the doorway. A young man in a suit, and a second man, older and dressed in casual, colorful clothes. The older man’s eyes were wild, and he launched forward, biting the neck of the man in the suit.

  The victim screamed as the infected tore a chunk from his throat and swallowed. Behind them, pandemonium—more infected, maybe even everyone in the full car.

  Shit!

  Panic filled Jonah’s car as the situation seemed to dawn on the passengers at the same time. Jonah couldn’t turn back, though. He’d take his chance rushing through the confusion of zombies rather than risk facing the hunter orb.

  There was a mad scramble toward the door to the rear car, and it stopped his progress dead.

  “Back!” Jonah screamed, shoving his blaster in a man’s face.

  The man was too panicked to recognize the threat, and shoved Jonah aside before he could squeeze off a shot.

  His blaster fell to the ground as people stampeded toward the rear, over both Jonah and the gun.

  Jonah was buried in legs, arms, and raining bodies. Shrieks filled the air.

  Pain exploded through him—legs, arms, ribs, head—everything was battered. He tried to stand, crawl into the safety of the seat to his left, but was shoved down by the mass of people clawing and climbing toward the exit.

  Then, new screams. And a worse sound: in the car behind him, Jonah heard the orb vaporizing the poor souls who’d run into the car for safety.

  He lifted his head, looked to the seat, and began crawling out of the way.

  Too late.

  Passengers who had fled the car began pouring back in, trampling him, as they attempted to escape the orb.

  Zombies in front, an orb behind, and dozens of scared people on top of him.

  Jonah’s world was chaos, his heart racing as fast as the train barreling down the tracks. He expected the orb to catch him.

  He had to stand.

  More vaporizing behind him.

  Pinned to his spot, Jonah looked up to see a woman coming through the doors at the car’s front—the little girl’s mother, screaming as she tried to pull something off her back.

  It was the girl, holding tight, howling as she gnashed at her mother’s face, trying to eat her. The girl bit into her mom’s cheek, ripping a chunk away with a loud growl.

  The mom screamed, and spun, swinging her daughter to face her. The mom’s eyes were wet and afraid. Her scream was desperate.

  She raced forward into the row and smashed the back of the girl’s head against the glass. The girl screamed. The mom smashed again, repeatedly, until the girl fell limp in her arms.

  The woman cried out in anguish as Jonah’s heart broke, again.

  A second later, she was pulled down by another infected.

  Another woman fell down in front of him, stood, then kept running until she froze at the sight of her zombie-filled path.

  She looked back and forth, then crawled into the row opposite Jonah and fell to the ground, trying to hide from both the zombies and the approaching orb.

  More screams from behind, hot blood and ashes splashing everyone unfortunate enough to be in the orb’s path.

  Jonah had an idea.

  He managed to twist himself around and tried to get up. Another man stepped over him. Jonah grabbed hold of the man’s legs and wrestled him to the floor, pulling him into a choke hold and down for cover in front of the seat.

  The man screamed, trying to writhe and push Jonah away.

  “Stop screaming,” Jonah yelled into his ears as he choked the man’s neck tighter. “I’m saving you!”

  In the aisle, a woman racing by was obliterated. The orb was attacking anyone and everyone it saw as a threat—anyone running and screaming.

  She vanished in a rain of ashen blood.

  The man cried out, shaking, trying to break free as the woman’s remains spattered around and over them.

  Jonah held tight as the orb peered through the open doors and hovered above them.

  The orb looked ahead,
completely missing them—for the moment.

  The woman across the way looked up, shaking as she whimpered.

  The orb spun toward her and fired a blast, vaporizing the upper half of her body.

  Jonah held his hand tight over the man’s mouth, so hard he thought he might break the man’s jaw.

  Jonah whispered in his ear, “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

  The orb moved forward, and fired, though Jonah couldn’t see the targets from under the man.

  Jonah listened to more blasts, screams, and the sounds of fallen bodies until the orb pushed its way through the zombies and into the next car.

  Jonah released the man, who jumped off him and ran back toward the rear cars, where the orb had come from.

  “Destroy the orb,” the old man screamed in Jonah’s ear. The camera feed must have started working again. Jonah realized the problem: if the orb killed all the infected, the plan would fail.

  “How?” Jonah cried out.

  “There’s an orb jammer in your belt.”

  “Well why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” Jonah screamed.

  He stood up, wiping the blood, ashes, and grime from his uniform. He hadn’t a second to rest.

  Jonah walked forward as fast as he could, grabbing the orb jammer and holding it as he’d held the trigger for the poison device just moments before.

  He pushed into the car and saw the orb still killing people inside, with no discernment for infected or noninfected.

  Jonah pressed the button.

  Immediately, the orb’s lights went dark and it fell with a heavy clang.

  “Now get off the train!” the old man yelled. “Quick!”

  “How?”

  “Head out of the rear car, climb the ladder to the top of the train. You’re coming to a bridge in about two minutes. Jump off. There’s a river below. Follow that north until it turns, and you will find your way out of The City; we’ll have someone pick you up and bring you back to Hydrangea.”

  Jonah raced through the cars until he found his blaster on the ground, picked it up, and turned around, heading past cars of corpses to the rear of the train, where the orb had not yet started firing on passengers.

  He pushed and shoved his way past scared people blocking aisles, staring ahead and trying to see what was happening.

  “City Watch, out of the way!” Jonah yelled, making his way to the rear.

  He reached the final car, and stopped short.

  It was packed with the infected feeding on not-yet-infected, maybe immune. One of the infected, the conductor, jumped at him, mouth open, snarling.

  Jonah fired into the man’s chest, sending him back, taking five people with him. Jonah used the moment to scramble over the fallen before they had a chance to regroup and recognize him as fresh meat. He made his way over the pile and was three feet from the rear door of the train.

  Someone grabbed Jonah’s arm and yanked the gun from his grip.

  He turned, to see not an infected, but a woman grabbing him, begging him to help her.

  He looked down, past her scared eyes and wide open mouth to an infected man behind her, holding onto her legs and biting her thigh.

  There was nothing Jonah could do.

  He shook her loose, and vaulted ahead.

  He reached the back door, then pressed through it to the outside, into the whipping wind. The bridge was quickly approaching and past that, a cluster of towers—what looked like City 1’s beautiful beating heart.

  The train was an arrow right toward it.

  Jonah found iron rungs on the train’s rear and started to climb, clawing to the top one rung at a time as the angry wind beat on his back and threatened to yank him down to the railing. He nearly fell once—sending his heart up his throat like vomit—and then again, two rungs from the top. The second time he was sure he was dead.

  But Jonah made it to the top just as the train whooshed onto the bridge. There was too much wind and they were going too fast. Jonah couldn’t stand.

  He thought of everything that had happened to him. Injustice filled him with enough fury that he made himself stand. Jonah pushed hard against the wind until he was upright and he trembled for a few do-or-die moments before the end of the bridge forced him to jump.

  He leapt.

  Seconds were long as Jonah fell through the air, cold air, and then water blasting him as he sliced into the river, praying he wouldn’t smash into a rock.

  He plunged deep and stayed under, swimming for as long as he could before gliding up to the surface, grabbing a lungful of air, then diving back down below.

  Water felt amazing on his skin. He felt clean, washed. Renewed. Almost hopeful.

  He didn’t know what he was supposed to do next, but the worst was over. He had gone behind the City 1 Walls and done what he never expected: he had become the monster he was painted as prior to exile.

  He did the job he was coerced into.

  Now he could find Ana, then hopefully Adam after that.

  Jonah was instructed to follow the river north, and then he’d be picked up. He wondered if he really would be picked up. And if so, would they kill him? Or would they live up to their end of the devil’s deal he made? If he was allowed to live, Jonah already decided that he would kill Sutherland. That was the only way to secure Ana’s safety.

  Jonah estimated he was in the water for two hours when the river finally turned and he pulled himself up onto a bank and felt his pruned skin baking under the early afternoon sun.

  He had no idea where he was in relation to the hangars, but figured if nobody showed up, he’d find his way to the coast and navigate his way back into The City to get a vehicle, assuming he could get in safely.

  He made it four steps before hair on his neck was standing. Jonah heard the first orb before he saw it, but it and seven more were all in his view a second later.

  The device Jonah had used to cripple the orbs was gone, lost along the way.

  Before he could react, or get his hands in the air, something flew from the closest orb, right into his neck, stinging like an injection.

  The orb said, “You are under arrest by authority of City Watch, Jonah Lovecraft. You’ve been implanted with an explosive. If you do not follow and stay within range, the implant will be detonated and your body will be blown to pieces. There is no disarming the explosive.”

  The orb that shot him hovered in front, leading Jonah from the bank.

  He had no choice but to follow, a prisoner shackled to an explosive leash.

  CHAPTER 50 — ADAM LOVECRAFT

  Keller sounded happy to hear from Adam, and invited him over as soon as he called. Jacqueline was out at her knitting circle and the Chief was only having leftovers, but if Adam didn’t mind, he was welcome to join him for dinner. That sounded perfect to Adam … and Michael.

  Michael gave Adam a stunner that sent the drug through a long, slender black-and-purple tube. He had to aim the skinny metal cylinder, then squeeze from its rounded end. Electricity shot through the tube, and if well aimed into a person’s body, a single dose could get a victim twitching for half an hour. The device was good for two shots, Michael explained. Even if Adam missed the Chief’s skin with the drug, the electric charge would still paralyze Keller long enough for Adam to get a second shot into his skin.

  Adam was certain the Chief would be on to him.

  He was scared, even though the plan was simple: Adam was supposed to wait for the perfect opportunity. When the Chief’s back was turned, and Adam thought he had enough time to draw the tube and squeeze, he was supposed to aim at the back of his neck. Once the Chief was poisoned, Adam would call Michael who was waiting with a few members of The Underground two blocks outside the high apartments.

  The door opened before Adam could knock. The Chief practically yanked him inside. He seemed insistent, not mad. Maybe upset. He released Adam’s wrist and kept walking, leading him through the apartment to his study. At the door, Keller stepped to the side and gestured for Adam to go fir
st, then the Chief stepped inside the study behind him.

  He pressed something on his desk and the wall screen lit to life. He said, “You need to see this.”

  Footage started in the middle of something, and that something was certainly awful. There were large seats, two per side each row, running down what looked like a long hallway. Adam realized it had to be a train, though he’d only seen them on Old Nation movies.

  In the train, carnage. Men, women, and children in a mass of torn flesh, blood, and chewing. They were eating one another alive, tearing at one another, zombies.

  “What is this?” Adam couldn’t believe his eyes, and already wished he could forget what he was seeing.

  “This is in City 1,” the Chief said. “From earlier today. This footage is only a few hours old, and top secret at the moment.”

  “Oh my God.” Adam felt weak in the knees.

  “As far as the world is concerned, you’ve seen the worst. As for your personal world, Adam, I’m afraid that’s yet to come.”

  Adam started to sweat.

  He couldn’t imagine what might still be coming.

  The Chief swiped a finger and fast-forwarded the video to a man running from the chaos. The man wore a disguise, but it wasn’t enough to fool his son, or the man’s former commanding officer.

  The Chief said what Adam knew was true.

  “Your father committed this atrocity, Adam.”

  “No,” Adam started to cry. “No, no, no! I thought he was in City 7!”

  The Chief’s face seemed somehow hollow, whiter than usual. His hooked nose was sharper and his face uglier. The Chief seemed … worried.

  “I’ve no idea what happened,” Keller said, “or why. But your father showed up in City 1 late this morning, unannounced and unexpected. They say he slipped in beneath The City like a scurrying rat, killing hundreds on a train by unleashing some sort of weaponized virus. It looks like your father was trying to bring down The State. Fortunately, he failed. City 1 is fine, and your father in custody.”

  “This is a lie!” Adam screamed. “I don’t believe it!”

  “It’s on video,” Keller said. “You can’t make up video.”