by Pippa Jay
"Oooookay." He slipped it on, a cool weight around his wrist. "Er, how do you switch it on?"
"Power button, right hand edge."
He felt along that side, and pressed the raised circle. The bracelet hummed, and a vibration shivered against his skin where it rested. He snatched his free hand away and held the One-Dee out at arm's length.
"What now?"
"All functions are voice activated."
"But what do I say? I don't have a frigging manual or anything." No answer came. Connor muttered under his breath. "All right. Um, show me something."
"You will need to be more specific," Mentor prompted.
"Fuck's sake..." Connor frowned. "Okay, show me some pictures."
The silver circle on top of the device opened, and a cone of light rose from the bracelet. A holographic slide show followed, first with pictures of his family he recognized though only from data the Mentor had given him. As each flickered past his throat tightened until he couldn't speak. Pictures of himself before the coma, dressed in the red and black uniform of his soccer team, or shirtless and barefoot as he dived into a pool with a group of others who must have been his friends, wearing a suit with a Union Vale badge—his school, perhaps?
His eyes stung. He didn't know any of these pictures, even though he was in nearly half of them. These people must be family and friends, and yet he didn't recognize a single face other than his own. "Stop!"
The slide show froze, this time on a girl. A girl with long dark hair and a tanned face not beautiful, but shining from the huge grin she wore, her arms wrapped around...him. He gulped, but the choking lump in his throat didn't shift. Connor had his arms around her too, as he pulled a stupid face. What a clown. And yet they both looked happy.
"Who...who is she?" he whispered.
"Unknown."
Damn. Connor put his hand over the device, trying to shut it out, but fragments of light broke out from between the gaps in his fingers.
"Turn it off."
The light faded out, and he slumped into the nearby chair, letting his head fall forward into his hands. Why had Mentor given him that device? What good did all this crap do him? It was all gone, and forgotten. Only he was left behind, with a device full of images to torture him.
Connor went to rip off the bracelet, but hesitated. The Mentor had said this was a communication device. Maybe he could call people, find out if there really was anyone else left in the world. Arrange to meet up with them.
"Mentor, how do I call people on this?"
"You will need to access your directory."
"But how..." He sighed. He'd play with it later. Right now he wasn't sure if he could cope with a dozen unanswered phone calls on top of all those images. "There's nobody out there, is there?"
"Unknown."
"But you showed me the reports, Mentor. I mean, you can read them too, right? You know what they said. They're all dead or zombified, right?"
"My sensors do not extend beyond the limit of the hospital. And I cannot read as you define the word. I can only process the information provided to me."
Some help you are. Connor sniffed, and wiped at his eyes. He wasn't going to cry like some baby. "Okay. So what other fun stuff is on today's agenda?"
***
Connor had given up making calls. Once he'd exhausted his personal directory, he'd moved onto the public one. People, businesses, even military and emergency services. Either no one answered, or he got an answering machine or prissy AI informing him no one was available and asking him to leave a message. Sometimes he did, hoping maybe someone would find the message and call him back. Sometimes he just screamed abuse down the line until the recording ran out or the AI cut him off. Then to torture himself a little more, he'd flick through his photos and try to remember the people in them until his eyes burned and he felt like his brain might explode. And always he finished on the girl with the beautiful grin, who hadn't cared about him goofing around in the photo. If only he could remember her name. There had been girls listed on his device, but no way to tell if one of them was her.
Then one morning the Mentor announced, "Congratulations, Connor, you have completed your rehabilitation. You are now fit for discharge."
Connor choked on his breakfast. "What?"
"You have regained the required level of mental and physical competence necessary for discharge."
"But..." He swallowed hard. "Mentor, I can't leave."
"You are fit and healthy. You no longer require hospital care, and therefore must leave."
"And go where? Mentor, you said everyone is either dead or a zombie. And you're going to send me out there?" Connor hit his fist on the table. "You can't. That's not fair."
"By article 17, the hospital cannot prevent a patient from leaving should they wish to, nor can we hold a patient who is no longer in need of medical care. That is the law."
"Screw the law! You're sending me out to die!"
"Should you require further medical care, you may return to the hospital."
"Oh, great. So when one of the zombies rips my head off, you'll welcome me back."
"Yes. Although in that case we are unlikely to be able to help you."
Connor laughed until he choked, heart pounding. What the hell else could he do? If it happened it the movies, it would be funny. But this was his life on the line.
"So where am I supposed to go? I don't even know where I live. How do I get there, or get in?"
"An autocar has been ordered to provide you with transport, and it has your address. Your One-Dee will give you access to your tower block and apartment."
And what would he find there, if he even made it home? How would he live?
"Mentor, please. There's got to be some way for me to stay here." His voice shook. As much as a pain in the ass as the Mentor had been, the AI had been his only companion for weeks. The only thing that had kept him sane sometimes.
"The hospital is for those requiring medical treatment only. Please vacate the building as soon as you have finished your meal."
A door that had been closed for all the time Connor had lived in this section now opened. He stared at it, a chill racing down his back, half expecting a horde of zombies to come charging in. Nothing did. Hands shaking, he laid aside his spoon and rose. He wasn't hungry any more. "Mentor, please. Let me stay here. I'll...clean floors or something. Anything!"
"Connor Innis, you are discharged. Please vacate the hospital grounds."
I'm going to fucking die... Legs shaking, he slowly walked toward the open door, his steps wooden. He might as well be walking to his execution.
A shadow moved past the door and he froze with a gasp. "Mentor, you're sure no one else is in the building?"
"No one other than yourself and those patients in the coma unit."
Then what was the shadow? His imagination? His mind playing cruel tricks on him?
Connor drew in a shuddering breath, and walked out the door. Nothing and no one stood outside. Nothing at all. The door closed behind him, and he resisted the urge to hammer on it until it let him back in. He wasn't sure what the Mentor could do to him if he refused to leave. However, with all the machinery under its control for patient maintenance, he had no doubt it could be used to physically remove him. If he had to leave, he'd rather do it on his own two feet and braced to meet whatever was out there.
The next room was a big circle, ringed by seating and with three other exits set around the circumference. In the center, a circular reception desk with four dead screens sat, awaiting staff that would never come. Connor hesitated. The air smelled exactly the same as the rooms he'd lived in—faintly antiseptic and fresh, with no grim scent of death and decay as he'd feared. Didn't the Mentor say everything had been cleaned up? Despite the apocalypse, there were no bodies, no mess, no sign that anything had happened, other than it being totally deserted. Yet it creeped him out more than finding corpses and ruins. If the world had ended, there should be more sign of it.
"Please fo
llow the exit route indicated." A glowing green trail of arrows pulsed across the floor, guiding him toward the left hand doorway. He followed, his mind screaming for him to go back, but his feet kept moving relentlessly. There was no going back. The door led to a glass corridor flooded by natural sunlight, and his first view of the outside other than the hospital's gardens. Connor stopped to stare. Nothing looked odd about it. The tall towers of the surrounding buildings showed no signs of an attack. The roads were clear. Again, his lack of memory couldn't tell him if that was normal or not, but he figured not. There were a few parked vehicles, left by owners who would never return. Yet there were no wrecks, or even the odd car left skewed across the roads where a driver had had to dodge zombies or been overtaken by the bioweapon mid-journey. Had any of that happened? Or had the city itself cleared up all the evidence, just as the Mentor had in the hospital?
At the end of the corridor, an elevator took him down to ground level, and more green arrows guided him to the main reception. Like upstairs, it was deserted with all the monitor screens dead. They weren't needed with no staff to read them, and no patients to check in. The door to the outside was set halfway along a curved outer wall, again of glass. No smears or bloodstains on it. Not even a trace of dust. Without people to mess it up, the city was clean.
Connor paused, his breath becoming ragged as his heart raced. A broad expanse of steps led down to the semicircle of road that fed from the main road running past the hospital. The unused arc of land had been planted up with grasses, flowers and shrubbery, thriving well in this perfect, pristine desolation. And in the road, directly in front of him, the small rounded pod of an autocar awaited him.
He sucked in air until it made him dizzy. Nothing moved outside. He couldn't see anyone or anything, not even birds. Surely there should be birds?
He shook his head. This wasn't helping. There was nothing out there. He needed to get in the car before that situation changed.
"Let me out."
"Good health and wellbeing, Connor."
Yeah, right. Fuck you, too.
The door slid open, and a warm breeze hit him full in the face, the smell of hot glass and tarmac, and a faint scent of grass from the garden area. Nothing more. The Mentor had assured him that the bioweapon had died out as quickly as it had contaminated everyone, job done. Even so, he drew his next breath with caution.
Like I'm just going to go straight into full on zombie mode... It didn't ease his nerves. No point standing around here waiting for it.
Connor took a step outside. The heat after the temperature controlled interior broke him out in a sweat. He turned back to ask the Mentor one more time to change its mind in these unusual circumstances, but the glass door slid shut.
He bolted for the car. "Open the door!"
The autocar complied, and he threw himself into it, not caring that he banged his head and shoulder getting in, not caring that it put sparks in front of his eyes. "Shut it."
The reassuring clunk of the door closing answered him, and he collapsed across the seat on his back, gasping like he'd done after his first session on the treadmill. "Oh, man."
Connor sat up, staring around. Still no signs of life. The glass front of the hospital dazzled him as sunlight struck it, and the breeze blew the grasses and plants around in a mad dance, but that was it.
"Take me home," he muttered.
"Yes, sir." The autocar trundled forward and carried him away from sanctuary.
Safely in the confines of the vehicle, he examined the surroundings as he travelled. Except for the total absence of people, the city looked perfectly normal. No. Connor corrected himself. Not normal. It was too clean. Too perfect. The city equivalent of a show home, made up to look like the perfect place to move into, but utterly devoid of personal belongings. Devoid of life. Without the drain on the power systems by several thousands of human beings, and without them making a mess any more, the cleaning systems had kept the city pristine. Just like the hospital. No rubbish, no dirt, and no corpses. It was creepier than any abandoned city of the past, like those the Mentor had shown him. No sign of the deadly apocalypse that had killed part of the population and turned another part into a mindless ravening horde that devoured the survivors. A horde that supposedly still inhabited this city.
Connor shuddered. Not that he'd been given a choice, but the hospital would surely have been safer than outside. And perhaps one day, another of the coma ward victims might have woken too? How long would the rest of them continue to sleep their lives away, and how would they cope with the reality they'd awakened to? Would he survive long enough to ever meet one of them?
Buildings zipped past, each identical, each untouched by time and decay. It should be ruins. His mind couldn't wrap around the idea of the city being undamaged while the people in it had been destroyed. There should be some evidence.
A flicker of movement down a side street had his heart leaping into his mouth. "Stop!"
The autocar slowed to a halt, but they were already past the side road.
"Back up."
"Reversing on a main thoroughfare is an illegal maneuver."
"But there's no other traffic."
"Reversing on a main thoroughfare is an illegal maneuver."
Damn. "Well then, take the next right."
"This takes us away from the main route to your destination."
"Yeah, I know, but...do it."
"Yes, sir."
The autocar obediently took the next right, then the next two as Connor directed until it was heading back to the main route along the side street he'd seen movement. Except there was nothing there. The road was empty.
Was his damaged mind playing tricks on him? Like the shadow in the hospital, had he imagined movement? Or was he just trying to convince himself that there were people here, people who weren't zombies, just to stop himself from going crazy?
"I could have sworn..." His voice trailed off. That was it. He was crazy. Could being clinically insane get him back into the hospital?
Connor sighed, rubbing his forehead. He should just go home, shut himself away and wait for the real insanity to set in.
"Okay, head for home."
"Yes, sir." The autocar set off again, and he slumped back into his seat. Maybe there weren't even any zombies left. Once the normal people had run out, they'd move on, right? Why stay somewhere they could no longer find food?
Something hit the back of the car, and he spun round. "Fuck!"
A green skinned, wild-eyed man was chasing the car. Connor stared as he—as it—hammered at the back window with filthy hands.
"Go faster!" He yelled at the car, shoving himself away from the rear window until his back hit the front screen.
"It is illegal to exceed the city speed limit. Please return to your seat."
The zombie threw itself at the glass again, then got left behind as it stumbled from the impact.
"Hell, no." Connor stayed where he was, as far as he could get from the creature shambling after him. Thankfully, the zombie was falling behind now, limping. Connor watched it as the autocar pulled away, shaking so hard his teeth chattered. Staring at the monster they were fortunately leaving behind.
It's true. It's all true. He slithered down into the foot well of the car, swallowing hard. The world was full of zombies. And they were going to come after him.
****
The autocar slid smoothly to a halt. "We have arrived at your destination."
Connor blinked and shook himself. He'd spent the rest of the trip slumped in the bottom of the car, not looking, not thinking. Just replaying the sight of the zombie pounding on the window of the car. Thinking of the green tint to its skin and glazed eyes. Imagining it ripping him apart while he lay screaming. He shuddered. It hadn't happened. He'd been safe inside the autocar, but now he was going to have to get out.
He pushed himself up slowly, peering outside the car. An empty street. They were parked next to an apartment tower almost identical to all those around it
. The façade of glass and metal sparked no new memories or sense of familiarity. It could have been an alien planet for all he knew.
Maybe that was it. Maybe he hadn't woken up. This was a simulation, an alien abduction, or a dream. A nightmare. This could not be real.
Connor shifted onto the car seat, still checking the road. He'd been caught out once. He wouldn't be again. He was ready for anything that this illusion could throw at him.
"We have arrived at your destination," the autocar reminded him. Connor ignored it. He'd get out when he was ready, and not before. The car was hardly needed elsewhere. Not unless the zombies used them.
Connor sniggered at that thought, and then slapped his hand over his mouth. No time to get hysterical. He could lose it once he got safely inside. If he did.
The street was still and empty. The autocar had pulled up no more than a dozen steps from the door. He could reach it in less than a heartbeat.
And yet he hesitated, braced to go but too scared to move. The zombie that had attacked the autocar had appeared from nowhere. Despite the clear view he had in all directions, he couldn't convince himself there wasn't a zombie somewhere within reach of him, like a monster under the bed. Cold flowed through him. Could one hang under the autocar? The taxi vehicles rode on three large wheels, but had enough space between their underside and the road surface for something person-sized to fit.
Were they smart enough for that? The Mentor said they lost all their higher functions, the stuff that made humans more intelligent than animals. Would they be able to work out to do that, or even consider trying it? If they were as mindless as the Mentor had said, that would be more than they could do.
He could outthink them and probably outrun them thanks to the rehabilitation program. He sucked in a deep breath, let it out slowly. Sitting here with heart racing and his stomach in knots wasn't going to solve anything.
"Open the door."
The autocar obliged, and Connor shoved himself out toward the doorway, slamming into it. Then he waved his One-Dee over the entry lock.
"Pass code not recognized."
Shit. He rubbed the bracelet on his clothing, then waved the central silver disc section as close to the lock as he could. It beeped, and the door clicked ajar.
