Machines of the Dead aza-1

by David Bernstein

  Jack was in pain and going into shock, but seeing the men shook him from his state. He watched as Zaun raised his blood-splattered sword to attack the intruders. One of the gun-wielding men pointed the weapon at Zaun and fired. There was no bullet sound, only a “pop” and then two darts attached to wires leading from Zaun’s chest to the weapon. Jack knew immediately it was a Taser. The sword fell from Zaun’s hand as his body convulsed. A second later, the martial artist was on the ground, shaking.

  Cradling his hand, Jack asked, “What do you want?” He felt the warm blood dripping over his other hand, like freshly heated maple syrup.

  “Where’s your wife, Mr. Warren?” one of the men asked. He was a huge fellow, with dark hair, graying at the sides, and a scar splitting his right eyebrow.

  Jack didn’t know if the men were here to kill or capture, but from seeing the Tasers in their mitts, he assumed they were here to capture. They could’ve easily killed Zaun, but didn’t.

  “In the bedroom,” he said. “She’s-”

  “Sick,” the man finished for him. “We know.” Speaking to the man next to him, he said, “put this fucker to sleep.”

  “Sleep, sir, not tasered?” the man asked, seeming confused.

  “Yes, sleep. He’s been bit ten. The doc will want to take a look at him.”

  “Wait,” Jack said, holding out his good hand. “I’ll cooperate. Do whatever you guys want. Please, just save my wife.”

  “I think it’s too late for that, Mr. Warren, but we’ll see what we can do about you.”

  Jack felt a pinch on his neck, and then the world went dark.

  Chapter 4

  Jack awoke in a wheelchair, his ankles and wrists bound to the metal contraption. He was in a small, dorm-like room, with walls that were painted a light gray. A simple twin bed with a blanket rested in a corner. On the other side of the room were an empty desk and a chair. Other than his head being a little foggy, he felt fine. Then he remembered: his sick wife, the men in black, and the loss of his fingers. He looked down at his hand. All four digits were present and accounted for. He flexed them to make sure they were real. What the hell was going on? Had he dreamt the whole thing?

  “Hello?” he called out. “Anyone there?”

  “I see you are awake, Mr. Warren,” a voice said, sounding as if it had come from somewhere to Jack’s left. He quickly spotted that the sound was coming from a small box protruding from the wall near the room’s door. Jack scanned the rest of the room, looking at the empty walls, and along the ceiling. It was there he spotted the small camera, its red lens a dead giveaway.

  “Where’s my wife?” he asked, struggling uselessly against his bonds. Seeing his hand again, he stared at it. There were no scars or sutures to indicate the reattachment of his digits. Even if he had found some indication of a surgical procedure, there was no way he would have use of the hand. It would take time to heal, if such a thing were possible. He shook his head and closed his eyes. He had to be dreaming.

  “You’re not dreaming, Mr. Warren,” the voice said, as if reading his mind. “Your precious fingers are back.”

  Jack continued to shake his head. He was dreaming. This was all some kind of nightmare; his sick wife, the city in a crisis, and his sitting tied to a wheelchair. Things like that didn’t happen in real life. He opened his eyes, feeling none the better, because he wasn’t dreaming, and no matter how many times he told himself he was, he knew he wasn’t.

  “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

  A sound, like metal sliding over metal, came from the door. A moment later, it swung inward and a small man, dressed in a white lab coat, followed by a large man dressed in black fatigues and wearing a Taser on his belt, entered the room. Jack recognized the man in black from his apartment.

  “You here to let me out of this thing?” Jack asked.

  “All of your questions will be answered shortly, Mr. Warren,” the small man said.

  “Good, where’s my wife?”

  The small man walked out of the room as the man in black came around behind Jack, took hold of the wheelchair, and pushed him out of the room.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’re lucky to be here with us, Mr. Warren,” the small man said. “Sit tight and the doctor will answer all of your questions.”

  “Please, just tell me where my wife is.”

  “You’ll see her shortly.”

  Jack was wheeled down the hall to an elevator. From there, he and the others traveled down three flights to another hallway, which ended at a set of double doors. A man and a woman, wearing black fatigues, each carrying an M4 machine gun and holstering a sidearm and Taser, stood to either side of the doors.

  The small man used his keycard and the doors parted.

  Jack was wheeled into a large room. Bookshelf-sized electronic equipment took up the entire rear wall, while a number of computer stations occupied most of the floor space. A large plate glass window, about six feet tall and twenty feet wide, occupied the wall space to Jack’s left. Looking at it, he could see nothing but darkness.

  Finally, Jack was parked at the side of one of the computer terminals. He turned his head around and saw the guard walk off to the back of the room. Not a moment later, a tall man with a full head of salt and pepper colored hair came over to him.

  “Hello, Mr. Warren,” the man said. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I know you have a lot of questions and I’ll be happy to answer them as best I can.”

  “Where’s my wife?”

  “I figured that would be your first question.” The man walked behind Jack and reposition ed his chair so that he faced a large window. “I want you to know, Mr. Warren, that you are being restrained for our protection, as well as yours.”

  “Great, I feel better. Now tell me where my wife is.”

  “We’ll get to that soon.”

  “Look, Mister…?”

  “Doctor, ” the man said, correcting him. “My name is D r. Reynolds.”

  Through gritted teeth, trying to remain calm an d submissive, Jack said, “Dr. Reynolds, I have no idea where I am or what’s going on. I just want to know where my wife is.”

  “I know,” the doctor said, and Jack couldn’t tell if the man was looking upon him with pity or contempt, “but I need you to understand what has happened. Your world has changed and in more ways than one.”

  Jack met the man’s eyes. “I don’t give a shit about anything right now. Fuck the world and fuck you. I just want to see my wife.”

  “As you wish,” the man said, then turned toward his computer monitor. Jack watched as the man bent over and began hitting keys on the keyboard. Bright light erupted from the large plate-glass window and Jack could see into another room.

  A woman was standing hunched over in the center of the room with her long hair hiding her face. She had on a tattered white gown with a red floral pattern on the front. Upon closer examination, Jack noticed that the pattern wasn’t of flowers, but something else. A door opened at the back of the room and a guard entered. He had on a puffy suit of armor, like something a dog trainer would wear. Shutting the door, the guard stood still, facing the individual in the center of the room.

  The woman seemed to jump into gear. She turned toward the figure, raised her head and began to walk forward. Her arms were outstretched, and she walked stiff-legged, as if she’d had too much alcohol to drink.

  Jack was captivated, unable to look away or speak. He was glad the woman’s back was to him, because for some reason, he didn’t want to see her face.

  When the woman drew close, Puffy Suit held out his forearm, just like a dog trainer does with an attacking canine. The woman grabbed the man’s arm and began viciously gnawing at it, as if it was a juicy chicken leg. A chill ran down Jack’s spine.

  “What are you thinking, Mr. Warren?” D r. Reynolds asked.

  Jack swallowed. The woman in the other room was acting as his wife had acted. Whatever had infected Jess had infected thi
s woman too. He needed to see Jess; to make sure she was okay.

  “I think it’s awful what that lady is going through. She’s obviously very sick and needs help. Why are you showing this to me?”

  “Because you need to see it with your own eyes.”

  “Well, I’ve seen enough,” Jack demanded, turning away from the window. A dreadful sensation, like knowing someone only had moments left to live, fell over him. “I want to see my wife, now.”

  “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, Mr. Warren, but your wife is dead.”

  “Bullshit. She’s alive. I was just with her in our apartment a few hours ago.”

  Doctor Reynolds reached out and grabbed a microphone that was sitting on his desk. He pressed a button on his keyboard and said, “Bring it to the window.”

  “What are you doing? I said I’ve seen enough.”

  Puffy Suit shoved the woman away and jogged over to the glass, then faced in the direction of the woman.

  “What day is it, Mr. Warren?”

  Jack had to think for moment. “Saturday.”

  The woman in the room was walking toward the glass now, toward Puffy Suit.

  “And today’s date?”

  Jack, thinking, then said, “November 12th. What’s next, you want to know the year?”

  The woman in the room was closer now.

  “It’s the 15th of November. You’ve been unconscious for three days. ”

  “What?” Jack asked shocked, and turned to meet the doctor’s eyes.

  “We took you from your apartment three days ago.”

  “What about Jess? I know you took her too.”

  “ That is true,” Reynolds said, then motioned to the window. Jack moved his gaze from the man to the window.

  Puffy Suit had his forearm out in front of him again, readying for it to be attacked. The woman was close now, her face clearly visible. She looked barely alive, face gaunt, eyes sunken in, and flesh, the color of a cadaver’s. Her eyes were lifeless, chin covered in red. What Jack thought was a pattern on the fabric; he now knew was blood. All over the blood-covered gown were holes and rips, as if someone had gone at her with some kind of implement or weapon.

  The corpse-like woman looked familiar. Jack shook his head, refusing to admit it. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want it to be. But it was his wife, Jess. She looked dreadful, malnourished and ailing, but at least she was still alive.

  “Jess,” he shouted. “Baby.”

  “She can’t hear you, Mr. Warren.”

  Jack was teary eyed, shaking. “She looks terrible. What’s wrong with her?”

  “She’s dead, Mr. Warren. Your wife’s dead.”

  “Don’t say that; don’t you say that. You took us for a reason. You can save her.”

  The doctor stood. “No, I can’t. She’s already dead.”

  “She’s right there,” Jack said, motioning with his head, as if the doctor couldn’t see her. “What are you saying? That there’s no cure?”

  “There is no cure for death, at least not in the way you would want.”

  “I don’t understand. She’s right there, alive.”

  The woman was biting the man’s arm again, viciously trying to get at his flesh.

  Jack watched as Dr. Reynolds leaned down and spoke into the microphone. “Shoot it.”

  “No!” Jack shouted, struggling with all his might to get free. “I’ll kill you; I swear it. I’ll kill you if you lay a hand on her.”

  Puffy Suit pulled out a handgun, pointed it at Jess’ chest and fired three times. Her gown fluttered in the front and back as the bullets entered and exited her desiccated body. As if nothing had happened, she continued to gnaw away at the man’s arm.

  Jack’s mouth fell open.

  “Your wife is not alive, Mr. Warren. She is a husk, a non-thinking, non-feeling bag of flesh and bones, controlled by microscopic machines in her brain.”

  This was all too much for Jack. He didn’t understand what was happening. He just wanted to be with his wife. To go back to their apartment, lie on the couch, and feel each other’s heat.

  “Jack?” the doctor asked. “Jack?”

  Jack closed his eyes. “I need a minute.” Sadness turned to anger, a boiling rage building within him. He needed to hurt someone. Anyone. Opening his eyes, he began to scream, fighting like a wild man to be free, but the bonds held strong. After a minute of relentless struggle, he relaxed, the anger gone. Sadness returned and he began to cry.

  Chapter 5

  A day after finding out the truth about his wife, Jack had her body put to rest. The doc had wanted to keep Jess’ corpse active to study her, but Jack insisted otherwise. The guards were bringing in countless undead, the city having an endless supply of subjects, so there were and would be, plenty of other subjects.

  Jack watched through the window as his wife stood, blood-covered and bullet-ridden, in the center of the room, head hanging low like some kind of ragged, old doll that no one wanted. Dr. Reynolds had explained this, saying that the nanobots were conserving their power, hence conserving the rotting of the flesh. As of now, the nanobots were not able to repair the dead flesh, but he feared that could change. The bots were programmed to adapt, to figure out new ways to heal. However, that was all theory, since it had only been tested in a living body.

  Jack wanted to be the one to take revenge on the bots. It was silly, but hitting the button that filled the room with electromagnetic energy felt like a small victory, justice for his wife.

  Now she could rest in peace.

  Over the next week, he came to grips with his new world, a world that made little sense, and a world without Jess in it.

  Dr. Reynolds had been working on a top-secret military project, code-named: ENHANCE. Microscopic robots, or nanobots, would be injected into a soldier, enhancing the soldier’s ability to heal and remain alert. Using some of the healthy tissue already in the body, along with consumed proteins and amino acids, the bots would repair any damage a soldier received as long as the soldier was alive. Any damage sustained from a small cut, healing within minutes, to a missing limb, taking a few days, would be re-grown or repaired. The only drawback was the amount of energy required to sustain the human body while the bots were active within it. So far, the bots required too much energy, causing the individual that was injected with them to have severe hunger pains, needing to eat immediately or the bots would start to take away flesh from the host body, breaking down healthy cells, ultimately leading to organ shutdown and death.

  Dr. Reynolds hadn’t been able to get pas t the issue of energy requirement and was still working on the problem, when Derek Mayfield escaped. Somehow, when the man went around biting people, he had spread the bots to them. The bots quickly began to multiply, using healthy tissue in order to do so. Without the immediate ingestion of food, there simply wasn’t enough energy to sustain the bots’ activity in a human body for more than a day without the body dying. However, even after an individual was deceased, the bots were somehow able to remain active, animating the body and sending it in search of food, that food being human flesh.

  As with Jack’s case, he was infected with the ENHANCE nanobots when his wife bit him. After being brought back to the bunker, Dr. Reynolds allowed the bots to repair Jack’s wounds, growing his fingers back while at the same time, intravenously feeding him copious amounts of protein. When he was fully repaired, Jack’s body was hit with an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, frying all the bots into harmless, crispy little critters that the body would discard as waste.

  Dr. Reynolds was working on a way to fix the problem. With the bots acting so quickly, killing people once they were inside, there really was no way to save the living-infected, unless said infected was immediately cared for within a day or less. A shock from 50,000 volts or more, or an electromagnetic pulse, would destroy the bots in the human body, allowing the person to survive.

  In order to stop a member of the undead, the corpse should be treated the same as a living
person, with electricity, or by destroying the brain, which was the bots command center.

  Cut off from the outside world, Dr. Reynolds was now working on a way to get the bots to work in the human body as originally planned, without the negative side effects, and in turn, find a solution to the problem. As it looked, millions of Manhattan’s citizens were dead, or “undead” as the reanimated corpses were termed, and highly contagious. Dr. Reynolds’ only hope was to find some kind of mass solution to the bots; a way to help the uninfected, the survivors. If not, he feared the military in order to contain the epidemic, would detonate a nuclear bomb, incinerating the city and everything in it.

  In the meantime, Blackhawk helicopters patrolled the airways while military gunboats patrolled the waters. Bridges and tunnels were closed, blocked off by military personnel and their equipment. Anyone attempting to leave the city was shot on sight. Shortly after the massacre on the Brooklyn Bridge-hundreds of citizens mowed down by machine gun fire for attempting to leave the city-a citywide media blackout had occurred. Somehow, the government had cut off all communication to the outside world, including cell phone, internet, and radio transmissions. Electricity was still running, at least for the time being, and Manhattan was on its own.

  The bunker where Jack was being held was built five stories below the streets of the city, and exactly below the apartment building that he and Jess had been living in. A team of scientists and armed, military-trained guards were at the doctor’s disposal. Since Derek Mayfield’s escape, the good doctor had tightened security, arming the guards with weapons from the bunker’s arsenal and deactivating the card readers at both exits. Only he and one other person, Guard Commander Roger Chambers, had the code to activate the doors leading to the outside world.

  The bunker was designed to be self-sustaining for a time of one year with the current staff, plus a few unforeseen extras like Jack. Non-perishable food and drink were kept in storage, along with a small armory of weapons, and antibiotics.