"You're welcome," replied the young black man, smiling. "It's nothing!"
"Thank you," Mei repeated, still smiling but looking embarrassed.
"As I told you, it's nothing..." Johnny paused, having been elbowed in the ribs by Red.
Looking at her furiously, he saw her staring at him anxiously, motioning at the room's exit with her chin, and, embarrassed in turn, he said, "Uh, we’ll leave you two alone, see you later." They then went out, leaving the father and the girl alone.
The young woman turned her attention to her prone father and whispered, "What happened to you, Father?"
Hiroto just gave her a shy little smile and shrugged.
***
As they were both sitting next to each other on the dining room couch, Red and Johnny exchanged timid glances.
The girl finally focused her attention on the room where they were. She had spent a few years here, but after all that they had gone through, this ordinary room seemed odd to her, and had almost partly been forgotten... Some things that happen to you change you forever, the young redhead told herself, that which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Nietzsche's thinking did not comfort her in the least.
"You should go to bed, too."
Johnny's phrase almost made Red jump, though he said it softly. She had been so deeply entrenched in her own thoughts... but she felt no fatigue, it was as if the serum sting had soothed her.
Or was it the young man's arm, which he had put over the back of the sofa and almost around her neck?
He was becoming too affectionate with her, since she saw in him more of a big brother than anything else... It wasn't the moment for this, she thought, and this made anger build in her.
"I will not sleep until I'm sure we're out of danger!" she said dryly, surprising her friend.
He removed his arm from the back of the red-haired teenager's neck and lifted two open hands in front of his face as if to protect himself, saying, "OK, OK, it was just a proposal, I thought you needed to sleep or, at least, to relax for... "
He was interrupted by a clamor that arose outside. Animal-like, it was audible despite the closed windows of the apartment.
They looked at each other, sitting for a few seconds, and then stood up simultaneously to look through one of the windows facing the nearest wall.
Several guards and supervisors were standing on the ramparts, and several others were running to join them, while the inhuman cries grew louder and louder.
"And you wanted to relax, huh?" the girl said, casting a reproachful glance at her colored friend, who frowned back and replied, "OK, I understand, let's see what’s happened!"
They quickly opened the door of the apartment and ran outside, hastily closing the door behind them, slamming it loudly.
Slamming which made Mei jump while coming out of her father's bedroom, as she had watched them leave.
She paused for a moment in the room, looking at the closed door, sadness on her face. I was so happy to be able to welcome my dad, but finally I haven't welcomed so well my daughter...
***
Red and Johnny joined the supervisors standing on the ramparts and, leaning forward, were as surprised as they were.
Hundreds and hundreds of zombies were coming from all directions, concentrating their movements towards the Community. It was as if it attracted them like a magnet, roaring like wild animals ready to receive the blood bath.
A group of undead leaned along one of the walls and began to behave in a strange way.
"Look, they mass in numbers, it's kind of spooky!" exclaimed a supervisor near Red, and she looked where he was pointing.
The mass of hideous undead dragging around the wall looked up at the defenders watching them. The creatures uttered an almost animal cry, a vibrating clamor that impressed the human viewers.
The girl looked at them with wide eyes, saying to herself, what are they preparing against us?
She did not like the answer...
Roaring louder, the zombies quickly dragged themselves toward the wall and clung to the door, trying to push it, without getting anywhere.
They touched, searched, looked for any weakness...
Surprising, how sometimes, they seem to have a brain that works again, thought Red.
A Caucasoid undead, more massive than the others, devoid of lips and therefore showing perpetually rotten teeth, with unkempt hair, tried something different.
The thing inserted the fingers of one of its emaciated hands along the enormous hinge of the door. Then it pulled, causing a squeaky metallic sound, showing that it was beginning to tire the metal of the hinge.
Its head exploded, spreading a splash of reddish-brown blood on all his peers around him. The trembling body of the massive, dead, headless man collapsed on the floor, trembling, its hand coming out of the door. It was shaken by several spasms for several seconds before coming to a stop.
"Hey, you've wasted one of our precious bullets! It was your last, wasn't it?" a supervisor asked the shooter.
"You didn't see that he might show others how to get in? These things may be supposed to have a dead brain, but they're able to imitate like monkeys, I've already seen them at work!"
"In the meantime, almost all the remaining weapons and their ammunition are out, on orders which had been given by Adams... And we have no sign of those poor guys who took them whereabouts, since the arrival of this mass of zombies!"
His colleague sighed of weariness and helplessness.
Red looked at Johnny and asked him, "We have almost no more ammunition... But I've heard that the NASA scientist who works with the Community’s Asian engineer knows about lasers?"
"He knows less than the engineer concerned, he knows about laser machining, though, from what I've heard," said a voice behind them.
Turning around they recognized Bo, who had come to join them.
They all jumped when a loud breath was heard near them and they felt a great wave of heat. Not far from them, a guard was using a flamethrower, sending sheaves of fire that literally licked the creatures, which recoiled.
"Those bastards are finally receding," one of the supervisors near him said enthusiastically, grinning from ear to ear. The other guy stopped pressing the trigger of the flamethrower, thus lowering the temperature, which was becoming hard to bear, even on the ramparts.
"Yes, but we don't have a lot of gas reserves for feeding the flamethrowers," said his colleague, concern on his face.
The girl was also worried, especially since a second sweep made by the man with the flamethrower caused a lesser recoil of the undead at the bottom of the wall. And if the creatures insisted, she knew very well what may happen...
"Let's go to see Hoffnung. I think I have the solution to our problem!" she cried out, and thereupon she descended from the rampart and walked down with the nearest staircase.
Johnny looked at his friend as they followed her and asked, "Hey, Egg, do you know what she's getting at?"
"No more than you," the young blond replied, shrugging his shoulders while pouting questioningly.
They were silent and hurried because she had already reached the bottom of the stairs and was heading towards one of the Community's main buildings.
***
Preparation
As far as he could remember, Hoffnung had always loved the study of curves, among other subjects, during his studies at the University, in mathematics applied to simulation.
And the pretty curves she unveiled, as she undressed, satisfied him... The beautiful young brunette he admired was now removing her bra, while giving him a knowing glance full of innuendo.
A virtual headset on his head, equipped with mini-screens and 3D headphones, he discovered with delight all the options offered by the Community's supercomputer.
Especially the simulation of human beings via genetic algorithms and artificial intelligence.
The scientist had discovered these particular programs in the 'Personal' file of someone connected
to the machine, during his research on the machining of crystal blades, and he never tired of discovering its richness.
The woman simulated inside this mathematical universe came closer, still smiling at him and, coming near one of his ears, she whispered something.
He didn't understand anything and actually did not care, so much was he concentrated on the synthetic being's perfect chest, with its pear-shaped breasts, which gave him the impression that they were about to lean against him.
He smiled like a simpleton as the woman spoke louder.
"What?" he asked, then laughed stupidly.
A slap on his left cheek sent him an adrenaline rush.
"What... what?" he exclaimed, surprised, telling himself, that certainly was not planned in the program...
The woman screamed even louder and he received a slap more violent than the first, this time on his right cheek.
He abruptly took off the helmet, his vision shifting from that of the pretty brunette to Red, bending over him, looking sternly at him.
"Oh," exclaimed the big scientist, who released the helmet in surprise.
It fell on the floor in a loud clatter of metal and glass.
Hoffnung felt suddenly embarrassed, and all the more so when he saw behind his friend Tony Lee. The Asiatic seemed clearly embarrassed, turning his eyes from time to time and resting on him insistently.
Taken aback, Hoffnung noticed that the young engineer looked down from time to time, as if to make him understand something. Then, still sitting in the armchair by the computer, he leaned down to look over his big belly, and he jumped.
He had just noticed a lump in his crotch which showed his excitement.
Blushing, Hoffnung tightened his legs to hide the embarrassing roughness and then tried to give himself a semblance of respectability. Touching one of his cheeks still red with shame that seemed to him burning, he asked the Japanese, "Uh... Yes, what can I do for you?"
"What Adams just put you in charge of," the young redhead said half-mockingly, half inquisitively.
Feeling even more disconcerted because he had expected to talk only with the adult who was standing next to her, he whispered, "Ah, you mean..."
"The laser machining of the crystal blades to make them useful to the Community," the young man interrupted with embarrassment, and with that he nodded to the big experimental ruby laser that lay on a table near them.
An uninformed eye looking at the whole may have had the impression that, on the metal surface, there was only a useless succession of lenses and mirrors forming pathways of fine red rays of the most complicated and even erratic kind... But in science and technology as in many other cases, not all is what it seems.
"Yes, of course," the scientist replied, clearing his throat before continuing, "By the way, before my break, I was considering the most useful uses and..."
"Do not search anymore!" Red shouted, making him shut up and she then brandished the crystal blade she had brought with her and thrust it between Hoffnung's legs.
He jumped while uttering a loud cry of surprise and then become silent. Surprised not to suffer any castration, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that she had just pressed the blade into the chair's cushion, less than a centimeter from his crotch.
Finding that the blade was buried in the armchair like a knife in a mound of half-melted butter, he also noticed, looking down, that his fear had made him lose his conquering virility.
"Hey... you're crazy… she's crazy, huh?" he cried, appealing to his friend Tony, probably shocked by the scene too, but who said nothing while keeping a low profile.
"Yes, I'm crazy," Red confirmed, leaning forward to look him straight in the eyes, making him uncomfortable, before she continued, "I'm crazy with anger because we're pretty much devoid of any ammunition, furious because a swarm of undead that has been lured around the Community is about to invade us to slaughter us, upset because the only person who can provide us with the only effective defense weapons against them is coasting along!"
The man blushed even more as she added, "And I'd rather not know what you were doing just then."
She grabbed him with one hand by the collar of his T-shirt to bring his face closer to hers and said, "We need you to cut the blades of this indestructible crystal that is at your disposal, to make good sabers that do not hurt their users!"
She then let go of his collar and presented to him her open hands, her palms still covered with bloody scars.
Flabbergasted as he stared at the girl's hands, he felt like there was moisture in his collar. Touching it with one hand, he pulled out his pudgy fingers to see traces of blood she had put on it.
She continued, still looking the man in the eye, "Because of Adams, we have lost almost all our remaining ammunition, firearms have become useless without them, but your blades are indestructible and can slice absolutely everything and may allow us to repel the assault of the undead who are massed in front of our walls!"
He swallowed with difficulty then asked, timidly, "OK, I'm going to laser polish a maximum of blades... when will you need them?"
As she was about to answer him they heard, "Red, the assault has begun!", and they saw Bo join them, running through the entrance of the open room.
Red turned to Hoffnung and said, "He just gave the answer to your question: Now!"
"What?" exclaimed the big scientist, opening his eyes bulging with surprise. "Let's see, it will take time for me to carve, a laser is not a simple millstone, and..."
"We do not need art to be brandished in a fashion show, but weapons that can be used without hurting. Give us as many cutting blades as you can, right now. Please!"
"But I can’t do all that alone," Hoffnung whined.
"No, you're not alone," his Japanese friend said, before adding, "After all, I'm the laser specialist, here."
"Thank you Sir," exclaimed Red, "I knew we could count on you. Come on, Bo, show me what's going on outside!"
She left the room, trotting while following Bo.
Hoffnung watched her leave, open-mouthed, clearly upset. Then, leaning over to catch the "guard" of the blade that the girl had sunk into the seat, he withdrew it very cautiously. He didn't want to hurt himself... and certainly not carelessly hurt himself...
Then manipulating the "guard", still covered with the young redhead's brown blood, with his big, pudgy hands, he looked in amazement at Lee, who had begun to work on one of the mirrors around the laser beam and asked, "Who is she? Who is that kid? The new Administrator? Where is Adams?"
The engineer answered by smiling shyly at him.
***
Besieged
When Red, accompanied by Bo, approached the edge of the circular rampart surrounding the gigantic dome of the Community, she heard a clamor such as she had never known!
A visceral, animal clamor came from below, as well as from the surroundings, as far as their eyes could see.
They were all here, those beings hungry for living human flesh, dressed in tattered clothes reminiscent of elements of their past life, which was gone forever. Their mouths open, greedy, recalled their current condition, the most monstrous kind. They could open their mouths disproportionately, because of the rotten attachment of their jaws. They managed to open their jaws like snakes, strengthening even more their frightening appearance.
Red stared, her heart beating, all those hungry mouths, all those black holes, some of whom, probably, had been sated with the flesh of her mother.
This thought made her close her eyes and the image of her mother came back to her mind.
Her mother falling from the tree, reaching out to her as she fell, fell, as if in slow motion, into a blood-red picture.
"Red, are you OK?"
She opened her eyes, having recognized the voice of Johnny, who had approached her and Bo on the ramparts.
She caught herself and, smiling, she lied to him, "Oh, I'm fine, thank you."
"There, look, it's happening again!" Bo exclaimed, pointing to somethin
g below, at the foot of the wall.
She followed what he said, and could not help but be intrigued by what she saw.
Hundreds of undead had already gathered at the bottom of the ramparts, heads raised.
These creatures and the human beings standing on the ramparts observed each other.
Red thought it was always intriguing to feel being observed by a creature who might have rotten eyes, or even no eyes at all. Some scientists had speculated that it was only by smell that zombies followed their prey, even with their empty orbits. But the young redhead had never been satisfied with this explanation. The flair developed to the detriment of other senses, this idea could not convince her.
She felt, deep inside herself, that there was something else...
Especially tonight, their way of observing her very much intrigued the teen.
But, more ominously, thousands came from the surrounding woods, coming out of the groves, from behind the trees. They were seen dragging their feet, all heading to one destination: the Community.
And as their population density increased, at the foot of the Cyclopean walls, they began to trample each other, while compact groups began to form.
And other creatures were still coming in from everywhere, adding layer by layer over the previous undead, which under pressure finally fell on the dusty ground, or on their fellow creatures which had also fallen before them.
They began to form a shapeless carpet of decomposing beings, a moving carpet, which, with the amount of zombies that climbed it, began to swell, swell, reminiscent of a mound of teeming bodies.
The mound seemed to be alive while, paradoxically, being made with beings on the fringes of life and death...
The young men and the other guards on the ramparts watched the weird merry-go-round of the undead, which began to form other mounds of zombies along the walls.
Red, shrugging, told Bo, who was watching the scene intensely, "Their behavior is weird, but no more disturbing than usual, I find!"
Hungry Series: Tomes 1 & 2 Page 33
