Age of Z: A Tale of Survival (2 page)

More exciting to Alexa on these floors, though, was the scientific notes she found everywhere
.
She found herself reading whiteboards with chemical formulas curiously, or paging through binders and notebooks of handwritten and computer-printed notes, idly decoding the meanings and intents of the scientists that had been here before her.

It had been a while since she'd seriously toyed with any of the sciences, since zombies really were more impressed by your ability to run away from them than your ability to recite the entire periodic table from memory. But it was all still there in her head, and it didn't take her too long to pull apart the formulas for the hidden meanings beneath.

At first it was exciting–she'd always loved this stuff, even at twelve–but the more she read, the more it became disturbing instead. Some of the things this facility had been up to were... well,
sick
, honestly.

Genetic manipulation, forced mutations, cloning... it all looked pretty twisted, and the more Alexa read, the more she had questions. What had been going on here? Why was there some secret scientific facility below the capital? Was it part of the Liberty Project?

Conspiracy theories flew through her head by the dozens, but Alexa had already come this far, and she wasn't about to turn back. Ignoring the warning voice in her head that told her
maybe this place wasn't safe,
she kept going, crowbar at the ready.

At sub-level thirteen, things started getting
really
disturbing, because that was when Alexa started finding the bodies. The first one, she was not ashamed to admit to herself, scared the crap out of her.

She saw some
thing
sprawled on the floor in the dim emergency lights, screeched in alarm, and had the crowbar up and ready to start lashing out before two seconds had passed.

But the thing didn't move, and when she tentatively approached it, she realized it was dead. Definitely an
it,
too–the thing was only vaguely mammalian, and possessed gangly limbs, a whiplike tail, long pointed ears, and a set of wicked-looking teeth.

Alexa grimaced, and tried hard not to think about it leaping at her and trying to tear her face off, because she was pretty sure that encounter would end pretty badly for her
.

There were others too, the farther down she explored, and not just like the first thing. She counted four different types of strange creatures, always dead, from horse-sized and built like a tank to tiny enough that one could have ridden on her shoulder.

Perhaps the strangest was the entire floor dedicated to hundreds of glass tubes, filled with pink goo. A number of them still sparked with bright crackles of electricity, which explained why the whole facility still had emergency lights at least. The bodies increased the farther down she went, although Alexa couldn't fathom why.

She'd gotten halfway decent at assessing fights and massacres after seeing so many of them, but these things didn't look like they'd been in any major fights when they died, and she hadn't seen a trace of zombies either. It was like they'd all just been... turned off, or something, had just keeled over and died.

This is not weird or creepy at all,
she thought to herself grimly. Whoever Gentech belonged to, clearly they'd been up to no good before Z-day. Maybe she could bring some intel back to the nearest settlement, see what her friends thought of it...

The strangest of all were the last five levels. By now Alexa hadn't found anything of trading value for a while, but couldn't resist the urge to keep exploring, and when she saw the bottom of the facility she was shocked.

There wasn't much to find on these floors, other than a heart attack when she looked at the wall once and realized one of the weird creatures was staring back at her. She'd screamed and backpedaled, bringing the crowbar up like a batter at plate, until she realized the thing slumped against the wall was dead as well, sightless and empty of life.

That had almost been enough to make her turn around and head back up to the more normal levels. But she shook her head and kept going. “Don't be a wuss, Alexa,” she told herself out loud. “You're already here. Might as well go the whole way or you'll regret it.”

Other than the weird creatures, most of the lowest hallways weren't much to speak of. Sub-level twenty-six, though–the lowest, final level, from what Alexa could figure–was a special case. There was a lot of machinery strewn around, and a few odd-looking, highly-advanced computer consoles, most of which looked to be in severe disrepair if they weren't broken already.

It branched off into two smaller hallways. One of them was full of canisters that, after a brief glance at the formulas written on the outside, Alexa determined she wasn't going anywhere near–that stuff was explosive, and volatile, and who knew what would set it off after this long.

So she headed down the other hallway, trying hard to ignore the dead creatures in the hallway until she reached a strange round door at the end, partway opened.

Something about that door seemed... odd. But she'd come this far, she reminded herself again, so she stepped through to the other side.

It was dimmer in here–some of the emergency lights appeared to have gone out–and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. But when they did, her jaw nearly dropped, and she stared in surprise at what the room contained.

Or, more specifically,
who
the room contained.

Chapter 2

For a moment Alexa could do nothing but stare.

There was a glass pod in the center of the surprisingly large room. It was dirty and dusty, but even so there was clearly a
person
in it, and some sort of light source illuminated it from within slightly.

Shocked, Alexa dropped her pack and crowbar next to one of the computer consoles and darted forward to take a closer look.

It was definitely a person, the first living person she'd seen in a while. For one horrifying moment Alexa thought this guy was also dead, just like the dozens of creatures, left down here to rot. But a moment later she realized the dirty glass was misting just barely in front of the figure's face, which meant he was breathing, which meant he was
alive
.
Alexa let out a sigh of relief for that.

Reassured, she examined the person more carefully. The figure was outfitted in a bright white jumpsuit, with LS-32 emblazoned across the chest. Further examination of the pod revealed a large LS engraved on the outside above the smaller words Legionnaire Subject.

“Legionnaire,” Alexa breathed. Legionaries were suppose to be some sort of Roman soldier if she remembered correctly. Did that mean he was a soldier?

But no. The more she studied the sleeping figure, the more she realized that couldn't be right
.
For one thing, this figure was too young–he looked barely sixteen. No one that young would be part of the armed forces. Maybe captured by the scientists that were clearly
insane
here?

“Doesn't matter,” Alexa decided after a moment. Whatever this guy's story was, the fact of the matter was that this was wrong
.
People had clearly not been here for years–how long had this poor guy been left down here, abandoned in a pod while the world died twenty-six levels above?

It must have been terrible to be alone like this, for so long. Not even Alexa had been totally alone through the past three years–she'd still made friends, interacted with people at the settlements and colonies, and spoken to other travelers.

This
was complete isolation and restriction, and the thought alone set her stomach churning.

She wasn't going to leave this guy down here like this. It wasn't even a decision she had to consciously make–nobody deserved this, and she wasn't going to abandon a fellow person down here in the dark.

Who knew if anybody would come back for him otherwise? Clearly nobody else even knew the facility was here
.
He could be overlooked for an eternity until he died in his sleep down here, like all those creatures, never known about.

Determined, Alexa jogged over to the computer console, poked at the buttons to try and get some reaction. Unfortunately the facility seemed to be working on emergency power only, with only a few of the electric goo things left to generate power, which meant all the computers were offline.

Well, there was more than one way to interface with high-end technology these days–snatching up her crowbar again, she strode over to the pod.

“I really hope you
are
as tough as you look,” she told the unresponsive figure inside, “because otherwise this might hurt a bit.” And drawing back the crowbar, she smashed it into the glass.

It was stronger than she had anticipated. It took Alexa four more whacks with all her strength before the glass cracked significantly, and at the sixth a few shards finally gave way. There was a soft hissing noise as the gas inside the pod began to escape, and Alexa backpedaled in alarm.

The gas didn't appear to be dangerous, so after a moment she stepped forward again to continue her work–and blinked in surprise when she saw movement inside. It was hard to spot, the glass was so dingy, but she was
sure
she saw the figure's fingers twitch, the hand stretch and clench, and the chest heaved just slightly as a deep sigh escaped the body.

Then the eyes snapped open.

Alexa blinked in surprise, and for a moment she met the other's gaze. The figure's eyes were a brilliant crystal blue,. But they appeared clouded, disorientated, like somebody rising out of a heavy sleep.

Alexa had about a millisecond to register the other's confusion. Then the person's gaze seemed to grow more intense, and with an primal yell, his fist shot up, smashed through the glass, and slammed straight into Alexa's chest.

Alexa yelped as she was snapped backwards, crashing to the ground and missing the computer console by bare inches. The crowbar slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground out of reach–not that it would have been likely to be of much use against this guy.

She groaned as pain shot through her back, but before she could react further there was another primal howl and the figure burst through the glass. Shards scattered all around the floored teenager as the person leaped straight for Alexa.

Alexa yelped again, and twisted her head aside as a powerful fist smashed down where her skull had been. Concrete cracked, and Alexa gulped as she stared at the impact site; had that really been her head, it would have burst like a melon.

Great,
she managed to think,
I've survived the walking dead for three years now and the thing that's going to kill me is a good deed gone awry. This is
so
not fair!

The figure snarled again and pinned Alexa to the floor with one knee; Alexa choked as the air was forced from her lungs. The figure's fist drew back, and Alexa knew she wasn't flexible enough to escape this one.

So she coughed, gasped, and threw up her hands to protect her face, while desperately sucking in enough air to yell, “Woah! It's okay, I'm just trying to help!
Help!
”

She hadn't actually expected this to work–the figure's vocabulary had been, well, non-existent so far–but to her surprise the person's fist ground to a halt about six inches from her face. Alexa tried very hard not to breathe an audible sigh of relief.

The figure was staring at her again. His gaze was still incredibly intense, and the frown on his face was almost scary, but he didn't attack or start yelling again. Instead, his brows drew together into a deeper frown of confusion, and he rasped slowly, “Help?”

His voice sounded dry, and almost painful–like he'd never used it before. Alexa winced in sympathy, and inwardly thought to herself,
Okay... so he
can
talk. Okay. Better than nothing.

Outwardly, she was aware that it would be really good to
not
piss off the guy about a hairs breadth from turning her face into pudding, so she said as softly and non-threateningly as she could, “Yes. Help. I just wanted to help you out, that's all. If you let me up we can figure this out...”

She waited, heart hammering. The figure continued to stare at her, and then after a moment slowly recoiled back to his feet, hands at his sides. Wincing and rubbing her chest, Alexa hauled herself slowly to her own feet with the assistance of the nearby computer console, trying to ignore the intense scrutiny of her new companion.

Okay, Alexa,
she coached herself.
The guy is clearly out of it, so just start nice and slow.
Sticking out her hand to shake, she said out loud, “So, hi. I'm Alexa. Alexa Winters.”

The figure blinked, glanced down at her hand impassively, and then looked back to her face. After a few moments Alexa let her hand drop. “Okay then. Well. What's your name?”

“LS dash thirty-two.”

“Okay, but what's your
real
name?” Alexa prompted further.

“LS dash thirty-two,” the figure repeated. “I don't have any other name.” His voice still sounded hoarse and unused.

“Right,” Alexa said, trying really hard not to be exasperated. “LS it is then. We can figure out something else for you later, I guess. Look, are you thirsty? Your voice doesn't sound all that great.”