It was a woman's voice. Friendly, but with a touch of a robotic cadence.
“Liam Peters: Uploading.”
A picture emerged showing Victoria through his own eyes, as if he were reliving a memory. He recognized the memory as it played on the screen. It was just after they'd escaped St. Louis, on the third day after the sirens. They had snuck away from Grandma, though she was sleeping only a few feet away on the other side of the large Poplar tree where they'd come to rest.
Liam was watching Victoria as she stood next to the tree. He knew they were having a conversation, but that aspect of this memory seemed to be secondary.
He could feel the emotion he was sensing at the time. His heart was beating like a race horse. His palms were sweaty because Victoria was boldly looking directly in his eyes.
“I was wondering if you could tell me more about the shadow government?” Victoria asked that question, knowing Liam would understand it was code for “kiss me you fool.”
In the memory, his heart was reaching an explosive crescendo. He was feeling excitement wrapped with abject fear. A fear on a different level than what he felt faced with all the zombies they'd escaped. He understood at some level this emotion was stronger than all those others.
And then he leaned in and kissed her passionately. It was their first kiss. It was the first time he'd kissed a girl. He could sense his emotion as it happened. Pure, amazing, joy.
Though she slept in the scene, the real Marty giggled with childlike delight.
The kiss lasted a long minute. His emotions toward Victoria were crushing him. Not love exactly, not yet anyway, but after all they'd been through he knew he would do anything to protect the new girl in his life. A promise he knew he'd kept since that kiss.
When they finished, he wanted to do it again immediately. Very badly. But Victoria had taken him in and held him close and whispered something in his ear. He admitted he'd forgotten all about it, as he was so overwhelmed by what had just happened.
“Thank you for giving me a reason to live.”
The memory ended, causing Liam to instantly miss the powerful emotions he'd just re-experienced. Would he ever have a similarly powerful emotion with Victoria?
I hope so. I love Victoria. I crave that emotion only with her.
His thoughts, translated to words, showed up as green text on the 8088 computer from the relic pile.
“Aww, Liam. I love you, too. I remember that moment like it was yesterday.”
His face burned red with embarrassment—Grandma just saw into his private thoughts—but he felt pride that he'd helped Victoria on that day and that they'd helped each other ever since.
The woman announced,“Status: Liam network is clean. One-half of pair-bond network established.
“Thanks. I think,” he replied.
Wait. Pair what?
“Martinette Peters: Uploading.”
The next memory was Grandma's. He recognized her features even though she appeared almost as young as him inside the memory. After a brief ride in an old car—the memory knew it as a 1926 Model T Runabout—Grandma sped up an alley until she arrived at her small garage. It was the same alley and garage at the home she'd lived in her entire life. The same one where he'd been staying this summer.
“No, please. Not this,” the real Marty in the room cried out.
Liam felt her fear.
“Marty, you must share this. Please,” said Al.
The memory never stopped. Liam wondered what could have his grandma so agitated. She was usually cool on the stool.
Driving faster than he ever imagined her, she slung the car around the corner of the garage and stood on the brakes. She was obviously showing off, though no one else was around. Liam felt the thump of something bang off the front. They all felt it. Grandma's emotions assigned pain to that bump.
Grandma whimpered for a moment but seemed to catch herself.
“What is it, Grandma?” Nothing about it made any sense. Did she run over her favorite bike? Did they have skateboards back then? He ran through his own garage, imagining what would make such a sound.
In the scene, young Marty froze as she climbed down from the driver's compartment. Something on the floor had caught her eye.
“Impossible. It can't be,” young and old Marty said at the same time. Liam felt the confusion, though he wasn't sure how, or why.
Young Marty stalked toward the front of the car—willing herself not to see what was there.
A tiny white shoe.
It broke Liam's heart to see the next few moments. Marty finally made it to the front—and saw her little girl sprawled out on the oily floor.
“I left her in her basket in the backyard so I could go for a joy ride. I was only gone for a few minutes. Baby Victoria always slept soundly. Something made her get up and go into that garage. I never had a clue she was there.” Her voice was weak, but she wasn't crying profusely, which was what he felt like doing now that he felt her internal pain.
“Status: Martinette network is clean. Master controller for triad established.”
Liam ignored the computer. “How did you go on, Grandma?”
“Prayer. Lots of prayer. It helped me, it really did.”
“I love you, Grandma,” Victoria said to her from across the terminal.
“I love you, too, Victoria,” she said with her wink.
Liam realized there'd always been a connection between them, even before he and her became more than just “apocalypse friends.” Grandma had a daughter again, in a matter of speaking.
“Victoria Hennessey: Uploading.”
Liam wondered what the system would show of the girl he'd come to know and love over the last several weeks. It appeared to be taking emotional memories from each of them.
Liam frowned when he saw the first images. He imaged it would be his face. Instead, it was a significantly older boy—a young man.
Victoria's emotions are a stormy sea upon seeing the face.
Love. Distrust. Confusion.
“Victoria I love you, let's seal the deal tonight.”
Fear.
Liam noted it was real fear, not the giddy fear he felt when trying to kiss her for the first time.
“I'm sorry Darby, you know my parents wouldn't approve,” she laughs nervously, desperate to get his train of thought on something else.
“But do you approve?” He smiles widely, but his eyes are cagey.
Something unsettling passes through Victoria's mind.
Exposure. Lost. Alone.
Victoria looks at her surroundings. She is in a truck with the young man, in a remote part of a dense forest.
“We passed the Ranger station back there a ways. Maybe we could get directions.”
She was near home, in Colorado, but she was also adrift in the middle of the ocean. She had made the suggestion, but her heart knew it would fall on deaf ears.
The next several minutes were a blur. Victoria purposely fogged over it.
Betrayal. Sin. Evil. Embarrassment. Fear.
Liam felt them all.
“Don't worry Vicky, now we'll be together forever. We're promised," he said while holding her hand and pointing to the Promise Ring he'd given her. "That's as good as married.” He took a deep drag on a cigarette in the darkness of the back seat of his big pickup truck. Her memory focused on the evil look in his eyes, revealed by that tiny red fire.
Again, Liam expected her to break down at the imagery, but as Grandma before her, she faced her memory with calm once she knew she couldn't control it.
The memory skipped to something else.
“What. The. HELL!”
In that flash, he saw his own face after he'd just run over Victoria's hand with Grandma's wheelchair. It was the first time they'd met. He secretly hoped her first emotion on seeing him would be true love, but what showed on the screen was much better.
It said, “Not Darby.”
The memories ceased as suddenly as they began. The computer was just an old
box again.
The digital voice started up. “Status: Altered virus has been purged. Victoria network is clean. Remaining half of pair-bond network established.”
A second line was added to the green and black computer screen. Like the first, it sat near the top and flashed on and off in rhythm with its mate.
“Network: Access Pending. Physical terminal awaiting input.”
4
“This is the end, Marty, Liam, and Victoria. The end, for me.”
“You're leaving us?” Grandma replied.
“Well, I was never here,” he replied with a smile. “But you don't need me anymore. My role was to find an appropriate trio with the qualities necessary to unlock the mainframe. It requires a human pair-bond and a complimentary elder, or controller, to guide them. This is how the network was designed before it was corrupted. Three is an important concept in this computer system. First, your triad must open the gate—if we can call this place a gate—and then, after the pair-bond has produced a suitable offspring, a new triad is formed. The elder is replaced by the child.”
“But I have other elders,” Liam began. He didn't finish his thought because he couldn't be sure anyone was left alive.
“And so do I,” Victoria continued firmly.
“Of course. And if you had traveled with a different elder, this equation of emotional bonds might be different. I found Marty first because the Quantum Virus is both pure and mature inside her. That's why she could access her memory with such precision, and it's why she kept the two of you—and others—from getting infected by the corrupted version of the virus—the zombie plague, as you call it.”
“So, it's a helpful virus?”
Al looked at Victoria very seriously, as if deciding whether to respond.
“Only now, at the infancy of the medical advances of modern medicine and sub-atomic microscopy has humanity learned about this evolutionary virus. The most salient point with regard to Marty is that it requires approximately 100 years before it matures. For most of history, humans died before they were thirty...”
“Has it been around that long?” Liam asked. "Are you some kind of alien?"
"Are you?" Al shot back.
"What does that mean?" he replied.
“I'm its caretaker. I've been listening to this...system...for a long period of non-linear time. It has an underlying signal that calls out. It wants to be discovered.”
“This is weird,” Victoria whispered. “I'm not sure we're not dead,” she said, without humor.
“This is life, Victoria. The things that bring you together are...life. The sight of a man in uniform. The smell of a woman's hair. The firm embrace of a boy you favor,” he smirked at her. “These are the physical links. I'm also talking about the emotional bonds unique to humans. The timeless sadness of the loss of a family member. The undying memory of first love. Surviving trauma and rebuilding a life. The three of you are survivors, no doubt, but you are good survivors. You are agents of the light. Of what is right. I think you'd be shocked to know how rare that is.”
Liam's face had to be red.
First love.
He reveled in that statement while looking at the object of that love. The smell of her hair had been a powerful draw. It was one of the many exciting memories from their time in her dorm room. Something he hoped he would never forget.
Yet, something didn't add up. He was a survivor, and survivors don't take things on faith.
“You speak as if you aren't really here, but how are we talking to you? If we have access to the computer, can we find out where you are? Outside of this room.” It seemed as reasonable a question as one could ask, but he added, “Where are we, for real?”
“Ah, of course. You naturally want evidence. Doubting Thomas, as they say.”
He returned a blank look.
“I'll explain it to you if we get out of here,” Victoria advised with a little humor.
“Humanity has a dangerous edge. To reveal this terminal would be, by all indications, a death sentence. This is a conundrum I've been trying to solve for a long, long time. Imagine if arrows pointed to a secret location, like needles in the desert, and a team of your scientists arrived to study it. Knowing what you know, do you think this gift would be shared with others? Would it be preserved? Or...”
He paused for emphasis.
“Would it be corrupted?”
“It would have to be saved,” Victoria exclaimed. “We wouldn't destroy something so wonderful,” she said with too much doubt.
“My friends. The Quantum Virus was designed to make human beings whole. It could cure all disease. Reverse aging. It would enable you to live forever. But, scientists stumbled on a weakness in the design. Instead of letting everyone live forever, they self-selected the gift for themselves. For the rest of humanity, they used that weakness to reverse its effects...”
“My God,” Liam replied. “We did this.”
“They stay dead forever,” Marty continued, turning to Al. “You said these pour souls would stand around until the sun burned out.”
“There's that precise memory,” Al said with a brief laugh. “What should have been a gift has been turned into a curse. Your scientists tinkered, unable to find the source of the gift, but they've destroyed the wrapping paper.”
Liam sighed. A part of him wished he were dead. He sought escape from the responsibilities he'd been socked under. Caring for Grandma. Protecting her from a smorgasbord of scientists—
“Hayes knows!” he blurted.
A second later.
“But he's dead. Dang.”
“I bet Elsa knows. She seems to have her fingers in everything,” Victoria added.
"No. Not Elsa. It's Grandma Rose. That's the reason Elsa is after her. This has always been about her. Killing my family was supposed to draw her out. Hell, it almost did—she called me on my way to Cairo."
"What kind of stuff is your grandma into?" Victoria asked.
"I have no idea. I never imagined she'd be into computers and viruses, though."
"Be careful, Liam. I won't say if you're right or wrong, but I will say finding her will be hazardous to you. If any one of you falls, the access to the others will fall, too. Then, there's no telling who could gain access to this network."
He looked at Grandma anew. Keeping her alive was already difficult—now it was off the chain. She could die at any moment of "old age."
Al walked to the door out of the small room. The three of them were left at the ancient computer screen, which had reverted to a single line of code.
“You can ask the computer anything you want, but I have to warn you. The three of you are linked together. You have been given a gift—very close to what was intended when this system was designed. But it will protect itself, too. If people like Elsa capture and try to use you...well, I can't promise it will allow that.” He paused in thought, then seemed to want to wrap things up. “Marty, my dear. Our time is at an end. I shall truly miss you.”
“Well, OK. I guess I'll miss you. I miss the real Al dearly. Never doubt that,” she said seriously.
“I'm sorry once more for the innocent deception. I'm just a memory in this place. My real form is much less interesting. Someday I hope to show you.”
He faded out with a flicker, like an old TV set turning off.
Sensing time was a factor, Liam hit the keyboard. The first question was easy, and he keyed it in with the speed of an experienced keyboarder. While he waited for a reply, he keyed in a second question, hoping it could handle two threads at once. There were a million questions he wanted to ask it, but only two were necessary at that moment.
“Ah ha!” he shouted as the answers popped up.
“Liam. Grandma's gone.”
5
He woke up on the rocky shoreline of a muddy river. The sun beat down on him and the buzz of grasshoppers was the only sound on the air. There was a hand on his right arm as he lay there—he could feel it twitch.
A zombie!
The book I haven't even started.
With a light touch, he shook her arm to rouse her. In moments she raised her head from her rocky patch. To his amazement, they were soaking wet but weren't as dirty as he expected after a dip in the muddy river. Victoria's hairdo got the worst of it, as her headband was gone and her hair went looking for it.
“Can you believe this is all real?” he started. “Wait. You saw all that, right? The computer room? The waterfall? The ocean and stars?”
She studied him. He felt giddy when their eyes met. So many possibilities!
“Um, what are you talking about?” she turned to look at the bridge. The barge was gone. Only a small piece of the towboat was visible underneath the broken girders. As if it sank and came to a rest on the bottom. The cargo barge—containing all the people in the beds—must have gone to the bottom as well. The old green bridge was missing one of its Missouri-side spans. As best he could tell, the ICBM came down through the trusses of the bridge, struck the concrete highway, then continued through to impact their boat. Since they were still alive, he assumed he and Victoria were thrown from the barge when it struck.
“We saw Grandma?” he said weakly.
For many moments he watched her with a sinking thought he'd been dreaming. But the side of her mouth turned into a tiny smile...then exploded into one.
“Got ya!”
“Are you kidding me?” he said with mock anger. He shuffled over to her and they rolled together on the rocks and mud of the bank. It was unbridled relief after so much suffering and death, even though the thoughts of his mom and dad killed him. This—human contact and life—was what he needed more than anything in those seconds. Whatever came next would have to wait.
They wrestled for a minute until Victoria pinned him while sitting on his stomach. The rocks hurt his back, but he ignored the pain.
“So we're pair-bonded, huh?” she said with a coy smile. “The funky computer man said so.”
Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 Page 33
