by Gayle Katz
“No more experiments!” I shout at him. “No more!” I rush toward him as he points the gun at me. I duck down as I continue my attack, knocking him off balance. I see a flash of light and hear the gun go off, but I don’t feel any pain. As we both fall to the floor, the pistol jumps from his hands and skips along the ground. We scramble to get to our feet to be the first one to retrieve the weapon.
I manage to reach the pistol lying on the floor before him. He’s right behind me. I grab the gun, turn around, aim, and shoot him in the head. Looking stunned, he stares at me with a creepy smile on his face for a second before dropping to the ground.
Stepping back from the fracas and crouching down on my knees, I’m so tired. I’m tired of people dying and people forcing me to protect myself. I take a moment to catch my breath while wiping sweat from my brow. Killing people is morally wrong in my book, but he didn’t give me a choice. He didn’t. He was going to kill me, and I just couldn’t let that happen. At least Malik isn’t going to hurt anyone else anymore.
I go to Malik’s console, and search for a button or something to deactivate my clones. Nothing. Holding my breath, I click the button to open the lab door. Once open, zombies rush in. My first instinct is to fight them, but they’re ignoring me.
Chapter 13
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With Brie and Malik gone, I run back to the fallen soldiers. This time, none of them are moving. Damn! And if I can believe the dead soldier that Damar sent them, he’s still nowhere to be found. As I continue searching through their gear, I find a headset on the floor. Maybe it still works? I put it on and try communicating with someone, anyone who can help.
“Hello? Hello? Can anyone hear me? Hello?”
Nothing. No response. I try again.
“Please. If someone is listening, please respond. I need your help,” I cry into the headset. “I need your help.”
There’s some static on the line, but then I hear movement on the other end.
“Who’s there? Hello? Is someone there? If you’re hearing this, please answer me!”
“Hello. Please identify yourself,” the voice says.
The voice that responds sounds familiar. “Damar? Is that you?”
“This is Damar. Please repeat. There’s static interfering on the line. State your name.”
“Jane! It’s Jane! Damar, where are you?”
“Jane! It’s so wonderful to hear your voice. Just in case someone else is listening, I’m someplace safe, which is where you should be too. How can I help? What do you need?”
“I’m not sure, but the Vulture… he showed me what’s happening… whole cities being invaded by… me. We have to find the cure hidden in the lab and wipe out the zombie plague in all the places affected by Malik’s plan.”
“Malik’s tracking the attacks and the spread of the infection and the casualties are increasing exponentially. Close to one hundred percent of Shanghai is infected, with other large cities like London, Paris, and Mumbai approaching a seventy five percent infection rate. The cure would help neutralize the infection, and eventually stop it. Did they finish it? Is it ready?”
“Yes and yes. They did.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard in a while. Where is it?”
“That’s the problem. I don’t know. It’s somewhere in the facility here. What about North America? What’s happening there?”
“Nothing. Those cities are further away, and they seem to have been spared. With Malik gone, they should be safe.”
“That’s some good news at least, but…”
“But what? What’s wrong?”
“My face. My face is going to be forever associated with death and the destruction of humanity.”
“Come on, Jane. You have to focus if you’re going to help fix this mess, and humanity will be fine. We just need to contain and wipe out the plague now. From what we could tell from listening in on the emergency lines, the militaries around the world have been deployed and are trying to fight the spread of the virus. It’s time for you to get out of there.”
“Tell the Vulture to open up the entire lab database. And, maybe, just maybe, we can find the cure.”
“I can’t,” says the Vulture. “It’s one of those encrypted codes that I’ve been trying to break, but it’s nearly impossible. I’m sorry!”
“Get out of there, Jane. There’s no reason to stay there anymore.”
“No, I can’t leave, not yet, not without the cure. We’ve got to get it to the World Health Organization or somewhere they can manufacture it en masse to save everybody. But in order to do that, we need full access!”
“What are you thinking?”
“As far as I know, only three people would have full access to the entire database, and two of them are dead. So, that just leaves Professor Ben Carter.”
“Vulture, where’s the Professor? Do you have eyes on him?” Damar asks.
“Yes, he’s easy to spot when you have sight into all of the video cameras around the compound. Get to one of the dummy computer terminals. I’ve unlocked them all so you shouldn’t have any trouble logging in and getting security camera access. From there, you should be able to see what you need to know. I can walk you through everything as long as I’m in your ear.”
“Gotcha. I’m on my way. Thanks!”
“Jane,” Damar says.
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
“I will,” I reply while eyeing the assault rifles lying next to one of his fallen soldiers. I carefully unhook the soldier’s fingers from the gun and use the strap to sling the gun over my back in order to keep my hands free.
Running to the nearest computer terminal, I pass through a crowd of zombies. I slow down so I don’t accidentally bump into them. Keeping my distance from their gnarled faces and ear-piercing shrieks, they don’t stir. They don’t even acknowledge my presence. If what Brie said is true, I can walk right in front of them without worry of them trying to eat me. So far so good, except that as I check all the corners and keep a watchful eye on my surroundings, I see Brie, or what’s left of her. Her limbs were torn right off of her body, bone exposed and blood splatters all over the ground. There’s no need to worry about her reanimating. There’s not even much left of her.
I spot a terminal in the wall. Geez. It’s looks like a damn ATM machine.
“I’m here,” I say.
“Good! Now type in the password: GAMEOVER”
“Got it. What’s next?”
“After the screen loads, click the security camera folder.”
“Done. A whole bunch of videos just popped on filling up the screen. What is this? Like security cameras for the entire compound or something?”
“You got it.”
“Are these live feeds or previously recorded?”
“As live as you can get. It looks like we have the Professor and female friend on their way to the roof.”
“Female friend?” I mumble under my breath. I see the security camera the Vulture is talking about. They’re walking right through hallways and up stairwells filled with zombies. Somehow they’re evading the zombies, walking past them as if they’re not even there. Maybe Ben is using his zombie mind control or another cloaking device? “The roof? What’s on the roof?” I ask the Vulture.
“A helipad.”
“A helipad? Oh no. They’re trying to leave. I can’t let them go,” I say.
Chapter 14
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I’ve seen enough. Rushing after them, I sprint down the same hallway as fast as I can to intercept them. In my head, all I can think about is that he has to pay for letting this zombie mess happen, and he can’t get away. He can’t! I have to stop him. I run up the stairs and burst through the roof safety door, a few yards away from the helipad. Not used to the sun, I have to shield my face. I’d like to appreciate the outside, but right now other priorities take center stage, like bringing the Professor to justice.<
br />
I see a helicopter in the distance, not much larger than a dot in the sky. The Professor and a woman are watching it come closer.
“Stop!” I shout, pointing the assault rifle at them. They both turn around, look at me, and then at each other. The first thing I notice is the woman. She looks somewhat familiar, but her face is distorted, almost like the features of two people are fighting, blurring into one. “Get your hands up! In the air! Now! You’re not going anywhere,” I shout some more. “You haven’t changed one bit, Professor or whoever you are. You thought you could fool me, but I knew I couldn’t trust you. I can’t let you go, Ben. I can’t. You have to pay for your crimes, for everything. You have to.”
Ben raises his hands in the air, turns to the woman next to him, says something I can’t hear, and starts to walk toward me. The woman stays put.
“Don’t move. Stay back. The authorities will be here soon.”
“Jane, I’m as much a victim here as you are. Scrycor was behind everything. I was looking for a cure for cancer and we found it, but then it was overshadowed by this zombie sickness.”
“I don’t care. You can blame whoever you want, but you could have backed out at any time. You didn’t. You chose to stay.”
“If I had known what was to follow, I would have, but at the time, I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“We always have choices.”
“I know that now.”
As he talks, I hear shrieking noises coming from behind me. I turn around and see a horde of unholy flesh eaters escaping from the roof door. At first, I flinch. Then relax, knowing they’re not coming for me. When they flood onto the roof, the Professor turns his attention from me to them. As they rush the platform, he somehow manages to hold them at bay just like he did when we first met.
“Look at what you did! These corrupted things used to be people, and now they’re monsters. Does that even matter to you? You’ve ruined so many lives. You could have stopped your research at any time and alerted the authorities.”
“The authorities? They would have laughed in my face. Zombies? No one believed in them! And as for Scrycor, they would have just approached someone else.”
“You don’t know any of that for sure. You don’t.”
“We can drone on about this forever and never come to a resolution. Why should I be punished when I’ve suffered just as much as anyone else? There are other people at fault, too. Why should they get off scott free just because they kept a low profile? I was dead. Long gone. I didn’t choose to come back. Other people made that decision for me. My life here is over. I have the face of a psycho. They won’t understand, but you do. I have to leave now.”
“If you really meant what you said before about helping humanity heal, you’d stay and make sure people around the world get the cure. Right now, all I see is a coward skipping out on his responsibilities to save his own ass.”
“I did help. I commissioned the creation of the cure, but I never promised I’d stick around. I can’t stay. I can’t. You know it, too. And I’m sorry for that. I’m sorry for everything. I never meant to hurt you or Jack or anyone else for that matter.” He starts pacing back and forth. “I had a cushy job at a prestigious university and that was flushed down the toilet when things got out of control. After a while, I didn’t know what I was doing. I was out of my mind. You lose yourself, you know? Forget who you are. Forget what’s important. Forget your humanity. Do you know what that’s like?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. Why even ask? You know I do. I was infected once, turning into one of those monsters, and bit Jack. I didn’t mean to do it. It was one of the worst days of my life.”
“So you know the struggle is real. I’m not making it up or exaggerating. It’s the monster inside.”
“The monster inside?”
“All of us have a monster on the inside. For most normal people, keeping the monster at bay, hidden from everyone around you is challenging, but not impossible. But sometimes, the monster escapes and we can’t contain it. The monster takes over. That’s what the virus does. We don’t look like them now, but what we did while we were consumed by the monster, it’s a part of us forever. It never goes away. Isn’t that punishment enough?” Ben turns around and looks at the helicopter approaching. Fixated on the Professor and the woman, I hadn’t realized the helicopter was so close. “That’s something we shouldn’t be held responsible for. It’s not our fault.”
“If you didn’t have a hand in developing the virus in the first place, I might believe you, but you’re at fault here. So is Scrycor.”
“I made mistakes,” he says, “and I’m willing to admit that, but I didn’t do what the Professor did. I’m not him. I’m just his clone and I tried to help, for better or for worse.” Looking at the helicopter again, he continues talking. “Listen. We’ve got to go now.”
“If you try to leave, I’ll just shoot you in the head, just like Jack did all those years ago.”
“You have to do what you feel is right, but I’m not going with you. We’re leaving,” he says, walking away from me.
“If you go, you can’t take her with you,” I shout, walking after him. “We can’t have another monster roaming around out there. We already have too many of them running rampant.”
“She’s not a monster, Jane. Trust me. She’s not.”
“Trust you?”
“Yes. You have the cure now. It’s in the lab. Take it to the people.”
“Wait! In the lab? How do we access it?”
“The password is MINDOVERMATTER.”
“And that will get us access?”
“Yes.”
“Wait!”
“What?”
”Stop! You can’t leave until we verify it works.” I point my gun at Ben. “Vulture, did you get the password? It’s MINDOVERMATTER.” I wait a second for the Vulture to input the password. “Does it work? Are you able to hack the file and see the cure formulation?” I say into the headset microphone.
“Give me a minute,” he replies.
“We don’t have a minute. He’s going to leave.”
“Got it! It worked!” he says into my ear.
“It worked. Thank you.”
“Sure, I said I wanted to turn the page and help fix the problem I-the Professor helped create. As for us, it’s time to fly into the sunset. We’re not going to hurt anyone anymore. You have my word.”
As the helicopter lands on the roof, Ben starts to back away from me, preparing to escape. It’s then that I see Lance hop out of the front passenger side seat, duck down, walk around the helicopter, and open the door for them. Ben walks over to the woman, calls her “Brie,” and they hop into the helicopter together. Wait. If that’s the real Brie, who did I just fight downstairs? She doesn’t look like the second Brie from before, unless her genetic editing work got out of control. Gun in hand, all I can do is stare at them, and then I notice Lance smirking and waving at me as he hops back into the chopper.
Watching them take off and get smaller in the distance, the zombies bust through their imaginary fence and swarm the entire roof. Some of them run to follow the helicopter and fall off the edge of the building. Others just roam around in circles. Some of them bump into me and keep going. One almost knocks me over. Despite all of this, I’m still undetectable to them.
“Jane!”
“Let the helicopter go.”
“What? Let it go? Why? I thought you didn’t want him to get away.”
“I didn’t, but that’s not the same Professor from before. He’s a different person now. No good can come from punishing him. Just let him go. Besides, we have the cure, and I don’t think they’ll be a problem anymore. Listen, everyone here is dead or undead and it’s time for me to go home. Can you meet me at the front of the compound? I need a ride to the airport.”
“We’ll meet you there.”
I weave in and out of the zombies swarming on the helipad. Exiting the roof, I run back down the stairs, and through the long corridor, h
oping to make my way in between the zombie mess still raging in the hallways and out of the compound. With the rifle still strapped to my back and the headset around my neck, I come up to the main exit. I push against the door. It’s locked. Taking a few steps back, I grab the rifle from my back and aim at the door lock. I squeeze the trigger and suddenly light is shining through the small hole in the door. Walking forward, I push open the front doors of the facility. Finally making it outside, I stop for a moment and revel in the fresh air, raising my arms to embrace the sun and sky. “Hello, beautiful world. I’ve missed you.”
Chapter 15
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“Jane, are you OK?”
Distracted for a moment, I shake the freedom paralysis and get my head back in the game. “Yeah.”
I see Damar hanging half out of the Jeep, waiting for me. He opens the back door and I climb into the backseat. He closes the door once I'm inside. After getting situated, I turn around and see myself in the front passenger seat. Even after seeing so many of my clones, it still freaks me out to see another one. Then I remember, this one escaped with Damar when I got shot and decided to stay behind.
“This is odd.”
“What? Oh, yeah. Right,” Damar agrees as he hits the gas and we zoom off, headed to the airport.
I pick the headset up again.
“Vulture, are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m here. What’s up?”
“You have that cure?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there’s no sense in keeping it to yourself. Can you send it to the World Health Organization? Oh! If you could also send it off to a contact of mine in the U.S. Government. His name is Chris Ailis. If you could do that, I would be most appreciative,” I say, giving the Vulture Chris’s email address.
“Sure thing, kiddo.”
“Thanks for everything, man.”
I take the headset off of my ears and stare at my clone sitting in the front seat of Damar’s Jeep.
