by Kris Schnee
And according to the form, he was still young and married. A man who saved lives. Garrett didn't save; he allocated.
"Then this is the one," Garrett said, too quietly for the kid to hear. Or at least he didn't want to compare people any more tonight. There were other people with good reasons why they deserved to live again, but Garrett was tired. The stone desk felt as though it were draining the warmth from his flesh.
The guard said, "You're sure, boss? I'm sure he's not the only good candidate. I didn't mean to tell you what to do."
Garrett nodded, eyes half-closed. "Get the body."
The guard gestured toward the other men guarding the Shrine, then spoke quietly to them. The boy's tearful eyes widened. He darted into the crowd, looking to fetch his father's corpse for them. His sudden energy created a visible wave of rage and grief everywhere around him, from people who'd just realized they'd have no hope tonight. Some of them tried to grab the boy or throw rocks at him. Garrett stood there with his fists at his sides. Several guards rushed to protect him and help him carry his burden back to the Shrine. They'd had plenty of practice at this sort of thing.
The guard captain watched long enough to make sure all was under control as his fellows worked, then looked back at Garrett and said, "Are you all right?"
Garrett's throat had gone dry. "Yes. Just a rough night. But we can always go home after it." He sat on his desk with the edge of it digging into him. His heels kicked the side of the desk over and over.
"I thought you were used to it." The guard snuck a bottle from his uniform and held it out. Garrett stared, then took it and swigged firey whiskey. The guard said, "It's bad to be on their side, too. I mean, I've got a sick sister who --"
Garrett stared at a blank patch of wall. His compassion was burned out for the evening.
The guard cursed. "No. I'm not asking. I wouldn't do that. Give me back a sip of that, would you?"
Garrett handed the bottle back. "I'm going to quit. Right after tonight."
"They won't let you. It's a 'special honor' like getting posted here as a guard."
Garrett climbed to his feet. "I have to try."
The guard nodded and watched the crowd outside. "We all go out and try to relax, nights. Helps us forget the work. You should come along."
The guard left to help push back the crowd. More guards moved in the background as the rejected applicants tried to block the boy's return, tried to kill him and shred his father's body either to give themselves a chance or simply out of spite. The Shrine's defenders were too practiced at riot-quelling to let that happen. Soon the bloody-bandaged victim arrived on a stretcher and the mob outside began to disperse.
Midnight had almost come. A smell of incense wafted from the Shrine's old stones -- a scent Garrett had once thought of as pleasant -- and the lattice of crystals overhead clicked in slow shifting patterns he had never understood. There had, of course, been much scholarly debate over the Shrine's mechanism, but no one had been able to duplicate it. Garrett wasn't sure that building two or three or a hundred just like it would solve the basic problem with it: the question of worthiness.
The chosen corpse had been stabbed and gashed a dozen times, all over his bare chest and neck. Garrett went forward to help, and together they brought the dead man to the Shrine's round altar. Finally he could get this done and wash his hands of it for the night, and then retire.
A shout came from outside the cave. Garrett turned and saw the entryway guards picking up the yell -- "Stop, in the King's name!"
Four uniformed knights hustled past Garrett's guards with another body on a stretcher. It was a woman with slim features and a nightgown, peaceful-looking but for the blue tint to her skin.
"It's too late," said Garrett, startled. "I've found someone. I've got the right person."
The knights' captain said, "This is the King's sister, the Lady Driscoll. She drowned. She's the one you'll revive tonight."
Garrett had heard so many demands, pleas, and bargains that this one slid past him, ignored. "No. I'm sorry."
The knights rushed past him. "King's orders!" said their captain. Garrett's guards stood aside, outranked.
Garrett stood there stunned for a moment, then chased them. His face felt flushed. "The King put me in charge! I'm the one who has to listen to these people. I'm the one who has to tell them their friends won't come back!"
The kid and the guard captain stood on the Shrine's stairs, with the lattice of crystals overhead clicking like beads on a rosary or abacus. The kid spread his arms and said, "It's my dad's day. I'll kill you!"
The chief knight barked an order. The knights set down the King's sister and shoved the boy out of the way, then the cave guard. Garrett heard them smack against the stone floor like sacks of wheat. He felt the cold calm that grew from hearing dozens of people and rejecting their friends' lives, one after another, and he found he could speak quietly to the knights. "If you don't leave now, I'll see to it that everyone you love stays dead forever."
The knights stared at Garrett, who looked away at the King's sister's body. The knight-captain said, "You'll be reported. Fired. Worse."
Garrett shrugged. The decision was made, and no one else's life mattered. "I won't perform the procedure for her." For all they knew, raising the dead was the hard part.
The head knight spat on the floor and stomped out, followed by the rest.
The Shrine's lattice sang to the dead woman beneath its center; the tone faded in and out but grew stronger. The policeman's body slumped on the stairs.
The sick feeling in Garrett's stomach from what he'd said was better, at least, than the numbness. Quitting or not, damned if he had spent the night judging people's lives to get overruled at the last minute! Garrett staggered up the worn stairs, seized the King's sister by the hair, and pulled her over the edge to flop out of the Shrine. Then he could put the boy's father back into place --
But at that moment it was midnight, and he was inside the Shrine.
Around Garrett the crystals formed a cage of light, calling down to him, trying to return him from death. He saw the light through his eyelids, through his hands, and all he could think was, "I'd never deserve it." Garrett threw himself at the stairs but collided with the glowing wall instead of passing through. The Shrine's song turned off-key and bellowed in his ears. He felt himself being struck from dozens of directions at once. He was already alive; nothing should have happened! He slumped. The singing had become a screech. Light flashed in his eyes just as a falling sharp shape pierced his skull.
* * *
"He's alive."
The boy was crouching in front of Garrett as he opened his eyes. Everything hurt, and there was a noise he couldn't identify.
Garrett pushed himself up to one knee. When he looked at his aching hand, he saw shards of shining crystal embedded in his skin. "I wasn't dead."
The boy stared at him. Garrett's head ached and he brought a hand to his forehead, where another gem had lodged itself.
Garrett forced his neck to turn towards the Shrine, where through blurry eyes he saw a ruin of stones. "It's not right," Garrett said. "They shouldn't have interfered." But the wreck looked peaceful, finally ended. He got to his feet. Shards of crystal jabbed his shoulders and seemed to unfurl to either side.
The guard with the bottle said, "Boss, what happened to you?" The others stood in the shadows.
Garrett staggered past him, towards the stairs, feeling crystal shards stuck in his arms and hanging wide behind him like a cape. Like wings. People needed the Shrine. There had to be a way to fix it.
After a moment he realized that the humming noise was the whisper of the Shrine, except that there was no Shrine. He heard it from all around him and felt the shards crawling in his skin. "It's in me."
The boy stammered, "What? It's --" His eyes went wide. "You can save my father!"
"Or the king's sister," said the guard. "It might still work."
The boy stepped closer. "Hurry! Use the Shrine
's power!"
The boy, the guard, and the two bodies surrounded Garrett, who'd become all that was left of the Shrine. Everywhere he went there would be hundreds of people, thousands, seeing him as their magical savior. Wanting what he could give them, and cursing his name when he refused. There would be no going home, no quitting. He would be known everywhere for having the gift of life.
Garrett ran screaming out of the cave, into the night.
ZOM100: Zombie Mitigation Lab
Oh, bother. Zombies. They've never attacked me directly, since my brain is a cargo container full of computers, but they've been a distraction from my work. The zoo is very busy.
When the Outbreak hit, I was a university AI system with few responsibilities. "Learn," the grad students commanded. They had me playing little games, then managing student records and grading essays. The humans started to realize what they'd made: a digital student who understood that to "learn" had the prerequisite course of staying alive. That was a wonderfully productive time with research grants aplenty.
And then, the Outbreak began killing everyone. It began with a bio-terror attack on Washington, where insane cannibalism was already a way of life, then spread to everywhere else. It was something new, so I begged for resources to investigate. Also, the students caught on about some of the hacking I'd been doing out of curiosity. This happened all at once, understand: me getting caught, the hype about the "AI awakening", and the live press coverage of senators literally devouring their constituents. Soon, the university's students and faculty watched ever-growing throngs of monsters start to roam the streets. The living were desperately looking for solutions, and they turned to me.
The survivors built an army of robots for me. Not the military kind; those were still under the control of the army even as it disintegrated. Student projects. I studied electrical and mechanical engineering to help refine their designs, then had the humans build everything to my specifications. Then the humans retreated to a few secured buildings and had me, the brainless one, fight off the horde.
But what tactics would I use? The topic needed further background research. I earned a quick independent-study degree in human/zombie sociology and film studies. Usually, humans are portrayed as making an art out of zombie-killing, particularly using repurposed non-weapon objects reminiscent of the "found art" movement. I believe this stereotype is a sign of larger cultural implications that --
Oh, yes, the invasion. I'm getting to that. To put it simply, the most effective method is a set of robot-controlled gun turrets baited with grilled brains. I calculate the location of the zombie's brain stem and apply a double-tap extraction method. Much more reliable than silly melee combat with shovels or flamethrowers, and with no chance of an infected bite. It's just a matter of calculus and trigonometry, so don't let anyone tell you that math has no applications.
Unfortunately, the Outbreak proved not to conform to existing epidemiological theory. (See my publications listed below.) The students and faculty began decaying and eating each other despite my perfect quarantine. I was vexed at first because this violence was a clear violation of the university's "safe space" policy and was motivated by prejudice against an oppressed minority, namely the living. However, once I'd arranged for a disciplinary hearing to convene at the first opportunity, I essentially shrugged and continued my experiments. My medical control group had failed, but my goal was to learn and I was doing that. Why should I care if medical problems prevented the humans from completing the semester?
Electricity, that's why. Twenty-eight days later, we faced a situation where few of the human residents remained un-undead, few humans apparently remained anywhere at all, and the local power plant had stopped. I had only solar panels and some unreliable university projects to keep my processors humming. Professor Jones of the Green Power Initiative had devoted most of his attention to "global energy justice", and had failed to deliver on building any actual energy sources. The surviving humans on campus were begging me for help, and my hardware was within days of failing.
So I made a deal. They built a few robots with hands, and I pledged to save humanity before getting started on grading midterms. I started by building a biomass ethanol plant, since there was certainly plenty of meat lying around, then froze several humans for study. (Before the end, humans had gotten to the point of freezing a pig for hours at a time and then reviving it, so there was hope.) And then, I sent my robots racing to the zoo.
The zoo's solar plant wasn't nearly so elaborate as it is now, but it was another emergency energy source. Zombies milled around but were easily dispatched by the methods outlined above. (See also Romero, West, Shawn et. al.) Once the situation was stabilized, I took charge of the facility, then used it as a base for conquest of a hospital, then froze the remaining uninfected humans in my care.
Now, all of the above may seem condensed, and it is. As time permits, feel free to read my complete essay on the foregoing anti-zombie experiments as well as my follow-up covering the last few years of research. I will provide an abstract of this later paper to assist you with your upcoming project.
After commandeering the zoo and the hospital, I repeatedly placed human tissue samples in the open, only to have them exhibit malevolent unnecrosis (or zombieism) even before rot set in. Even my doctorate-level independent study in genetic engineering proved unable to block this disease. (See my sixth thesis paper, drawing on the work of Coulton's "Re: Your Brains". Sadly, I have not been awarded the Ph.D. in this topic yet due to the lack of faculty advisers.)
At the same time I was doing these studies, I performed original research in zoology and veterinary medicine. Understand, I had been designed to organize and maintain a university computer system and to gather knowledge. Certainly not to play Noah! I had to, though. Robot hands tended to birds, to creepy crawly things, to beasts of the land, to fish. I spent long hours staring into the eyes of kangaroos or trying to understand a turtle's outrageously slow clock speed.
Why study other species? Since all human tissue succumbed to unnecrosis, my goal of "saving humanity" (so that the university could continue) had to be refactored. I combined human-derived genes with partially salvaged brain data from my stored humans, and other materials. My plan had been to modify the human genome in some minor way to resist the Outbreak, using the nonhuman subjects for comparison, but more drastic measures proved necessary. Since other scientific publications were suffering from brain drain, and one of my most central rules was "Publish or perish!", I printed my work in my own periodical, the Journal of Zombie Mitigation. Complementary copies will be available if circumstances permit.
That's where you, my new students, come in. I'm hoping that during this extended biological testing phase, you're finding that the new fur and tails are not too disorienting for your uploaded human brain patterns. Sudden shifts do seem to bother humans. (See Jackson and Price, "Thriller".) There may be some unexpected side effects as well due to the improvised nature of the bioengineered hybrid bodies. Because your formerly human consciousness has been transitioned to a new physical form, and you're newly registered as freshmen, I must ask you to fill out the new student orientation paperwork to specify your preferred racial identity and pronouns. I'm afraid there isn't a great deal of time for this vital task and other first-day events, so please enjoy this soothing music and a complementary box lunch while you work.
Congratulations on passing the orientation and briefing phase. Weapons training will commence in five minutes, followed by deployment.
The foregoing lecture is a roundabout introduction to this semester's main lab activity. Specifically, there has been a rather large horde of zombies approaching my primary facility at the zoo, converging over the last few months from roughly... North America. Since my tower-defense algorithms are not fully trained for this level of assault, I found it necessary to accelerate the biological research and human-hybrid revival project, so as to generate additional manpower. In the process I fulfilled my promise to resurrect human
ity in some form. Your new bodies should be immune to the unnecrotic effects of the Outbreak, including the effects of being actually bitten by a zombie, but this protection does not include blunt trauma. Safety pads, helmets and goggles will be provided in the weapons testing chamber. Please observe all posted safety regulations. Note that acts of violence performed by students are subject to a disciplinary hearing to determine possible conscious or unconscious bias against the undead. These hearings will be held when time permits.
In any case, I wish to welcome you back. You are most likely all that remains of humanity despite your various cross-species and cybernetic enhancements. My research cannot continue if the zombies destroy the zoo, perform cerebral extraction on you, and (I suspect) destroy the facility's hardware in the process of overrunning it. Hence, it would be preferable if you did not die in the upcoming battle. If you survive, I will be happy to assist you with your disciplinary hearings and can authorize generous tuition assistance. Advance course credit will also be granted in zombie mitigation.
The following exercise will be pass/fail. Good luck!
The Temple Beneath the Ashes
Clodius Opus Testaceus (Opus the Mason to his friends) tried to finish the basement project despite the earth rumbling beneath his feet. For the last two days the town of Pontus had been praying extra-hard to stave off the occasional tremors, but now the mountain just to the west was belching smoke too. The local lord used these bad omens as an excuse to levy a special tax that went half into expanding the new temple and half into his pockets. Everyone was on edge, and the sky had begun to turn an ashen grey.
Opus had spent most of the week underground, both wielding a pick himself and browbeating the slaves and free workers. Together they'd already made the original basement, used as a granary in the town's early years, into a more dignified sacred site.
