Nano Z (18 page)

“I’ll admit, we didn’t quite have it figured out at first. See, each nanite is programmed to keep itself operational, to survive. In order for them to do that they needed a host, a body.

“Each nanite had three purposes programmed into them. The first was to heal injuries. As soon as a trauma occurred to the host body, they’d rush in to heal it. It’s actually pretty neat how they do it. You see, they copy the surrounding cells and are able to replicate them, seamlessly healing the wound. But they need live cells. That’s why those things out there can’t heal themselves.

“The second purpose was to make the host body stronger. We initially just thought they’d reinforce bones and muscles but instead they rebuilt them. Test subjects became radically strong. And their bones became a strange metallic substance composed of elements found in the human body.

“But then things started to go wrong. The nanites became, what’s the best way to put this? They became over vigilant in their third purpose of assessing and protecting the host from threats. Our test subjects became violent and irrational.

“Five of our test subjects died. Two were actually killed by malfunctioning nanites. The other three beat each other to a point that they couldn’t heal themselves. We burned their bodies after death, so we had no idea that the nanites could reanimate them.

“That’s about the time that the government cut off our funding. They said the work we were doing was sick and immoral. Who the hell were they to judge us and the work we were doing? Their job was to kill people. And they dared to judge us.

“So I did what I had to do to save my company. I released the stores of nanites that we had in facilities all over the country. As America tore itself apart, we kept working on perfecting the technology. A week ago, we did it. I injected myself with the first perfected dose of nanites.

“Now I’m more than human. We went far beyond just healing wounds. I’ll never age, never get sick and never get hurt. I don’t have to eat, even though I still like to. I don’t have to sleep. I’m perfect.

“Soon every survivor of this necessary purge will be just like you and me. And out of the chaos, we will rise out of the ashes like a phoenix. A new America will be born. It’ll be one without disease and without hunger. It’ll be a utopia.”

This asshole is responsible for all this? Yeah… I’m definitely going to kill you.

“Sacrifice, an unfortunate necessity. Can’t get something for nothing, right bud?” Ted stood there looking proud of himself. In his madness he truly believed himself not only a hero but some kind of new age hero. The fact that a million people died due to his actions didn’t seem to matter to him. That’s when Mack first truly saw what a real monster looked like.

Suddenly the lab was filled with loud sirens. Ted and Mack both knew what that meant. The former because he ordered the sirens to go off upon meat puppets breaching the outer walls. The latter because every resident of the Golden Pony was told what the sirens meant.

Amber.
Free of his straps, Mack got up off the surgery table. Whether he was a meat puppet or not, he was going to save her. Killing Ted Gorman could wait. She was and would always be his first priority.

“And where do you think you’re going?” asked Ted as he watched Mack get up and head towards the only door in the room.

Mack didn’t answer. He tried to open the glass door. It was locked. His fist reared back and was ready to break through it.

“You’re going to go save that little girl you were with, aren’t you? What was her name? Amber, right? Notice how I said ‘was’ instead of ‘is’? That’s because she’s probably dead already.” Ted talked while trying to pick bits of apple out of his teeth with his tongue.

“How do you… you know what? I don’t care. I’m going to go save her. You can’t stop me.” Mack punched through the door. He hit it with enough force to shatter the glass. And he didn’t feel a thing.

Ted strolled over to Mack who was looking at his hand in disbelief. He put his hand on his shoulder. Mack’s reaction was to punch the CEO of Galatea Systems in the face. All it achieved was it messed up his hair.

Damn.
Mack didn’t bother throwing another punch. He wasn’t a scientist like Ted Gorman. But he was smart enough to realize that trying to beat up a man who could almost instantly heal any injury was pointless. If he was going to kill him, he’d have to get more creative than that. Again, that had to wait.

Ted fixed his hair then wiped the black blood from his lip. “As I was about to say before you punched me in my face, you can’t save her. At least not by yourself.”

You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” said Mack.

“No. This would be the perfect chance to test the capabilities of our new bodies. Plus as strong as you are, there are thousands of infected out there. You need my help. And I need yours.

“Here’s the deal. I help you find your daughter or girlfriend or whatever the fuck she is. And you help me get to the roof. We installed a dispersal system up there for our new and improved nanites. The problem is it has to be activated manually.

“So… I help you, you help me and in doing so help America. Deal?” Ted stuck out his hand for Mack to shake.

Mack didn’t answer. He just climbed through the broken glass of the door. The next room was full of expensive looking medical equipment, and dead bodies. All of the corpses had on white lab coats. Most were in several pieces.

“Don’t worry about them. They are of no further use to me. Just forget you ever saw them.” Ted tip toed around his victims.

God it’s going to feel good killing this guy.

Amber was stuck on the ground floor of the Golden Pony. Specifically, she hid amongst the seemingly endless electronic gambling machines. None of them were operational but they provide decent hiding places.

The Golden Pony lobby was overrun by meat puppets. Amber could hear the security forces who fought valiantly against the creatures get torn apart alive. It was gruesome.

As horrible as the slaughter was, Amber didn’t hide because she was scared. She hid because she knew she couldn’t fight the hundreds of walking corpses that infiltrated the casino. If she was going to get away and find Mack, she had to be smart.

Amber moved from gambling machine to gambling machine. She had to wait for her moments as some of the meat puppets wandered into the casino floor. As long as she stayed low and didn’t make any noise, she’d be okay. That was her mindset.

Until the lights went out.

There are no windows in casinos. That was done for the same reason that there were no clocks. The last thing a casino wants is for gamblers to know how long they’ve been playing. Because the longer they sat at the tables or machines, the more money they were likely to lose. Only the hotel rooms had windows.

Without a view to the outside world, the Golden Pony casino floor on the ground level was almost pitch black. The only reference points were the red exit signs required by Nevada State law in case there was a fire. To make things worse, Amber didn’t have her phone to use as a light.

Head towards the exit signs. All you have to do is reach them.
Amber slung her crossbow across her mid-section. It would be useless in the dark. Instead she unsheathed a knife she took from one of the armory stations. In her other hand she held her pistol, just in case.

Some of the meat puppets on the casino floor were at a more advanced stage than others. That was to Amber’s advantage. Their glowing red eyes made avoiding them easier.

Shadows darker than the casino floor wandered around. Every couple of seconds, one screeched. Amber managed to make it halfway to an exit sign near a far wall.

Each step Amber took was a gamble. At any moment she could’ve run right into a meat puppet. Despite the danger she stayed low and moved quickly and quietly.

Almost there. Just a little ways to…
Amber bumped into someone or something. She raised her knife and prepared to stab. Then she heard an ear piercing screech. Without delay, she stabbed upwards, hoping to skewer a meat puppet head.

Amber didn’t know where or what she stabbed but she sure as hell wasn’t going to stick around to find out. The teen stumbled over the fallen body that she stuck with her knife. Unsurprisingly she was tripped up.

I’m dead.
All the noise Amber made attracted other meat puppets. They screeched and started to converge on her. She scrambled to her feet and ran towards the red exit sign. Luck was on her side and she reached a door.

“Over here! Hurry!” Amber heard voices in the dark. One of them sounded familiar. “C’mon!” Through dim red emergency lighting, she saw the silhouette of a man at the end of the hallway she found herself in.

There wasn’t enough time for Amber to think. She had to move. Behind her, the door that she used to exit the casino floor, swung open. A meat puppet that was barely more than a metallic skeleton came through, followed by two running puppet dogs.

One of the dogs was missing three fourths of its face. The metal skull underneath reflected the red emergency lights. Next to the faceless dog was one that was more intact but bared metallic teeth. Both looked crazed and willing to maul Amber.

Shit.
Amber ran. Her feet underneath her moved faster than they ever had before, spurred on by slobbering monstrous mutts. Through her ribcage she could feel her heart pounding. When she reached the end of the hall and tried to stop, her feet slid.

The faceless dog lunged at her. There wasn’t enough time to raise and aim her pistol. She did the only thing she could. She ducked.

Amber’s pursuer slammed into the wall at the end of the hall, faceless head first. The girl looked up and saw a familiar face hold out his hand and encourage her to follow him. It was Spencer, the man whom she shared an armored transport with on the way to Las Vegas.

***

“What are you going to do with all of them?” asked Mack as he and Ted walked past the tarp covered hospital beds near the entrance of the labs. He’d already seen the remains of Ted’s science team.

“What do you mean?” Ted was confused.

“These people,” said Mack as he pointed at the hospital beds.

“People? They’re not people, just spoiled meat. Leave them.” There was no sarcasm in Ted’s voice. There was only coldness.

“We can’t just…”

“Of course we can.” Ted took out a pistol. He started firing at the infected strapped to the tarp covered hospital beds. That spurred Mack into action.

You son of a bitch.
Mack punched Ted harder then he’d ever hit anyone before in his life. The arrogant, psychotic CEO’s jaw was dislocated and partially shattered.

Ted laughed through his broken jaw as it rapidly mended. “You’re too sensitive.”

That felt really good.
“You’re insane.” Mack didn’t wait for Ted. He headed towards the tinted glass door that separated the labs from the white room he used to work in.

Mack didn’t care that he didn’t have a keycard. He didn’t need one. His foot broke right through the tinted glass door. When he climbed through he was surprised to see Eugene sitting behind his desk.

Time for a little payback.
“Hello Eugene,” said Mack. That time he had the sadistic smile.

“Jesus,” Eugene fell over trying to get up out of his chair. He put his hands up in front of him in a defensive position. “Whoa, hold up. I’m just an employee. I did what I was told to do. It wasn’t anything personal.”

“It sure felt personal when you knocked me out.” Mack slowly approached Eugene.

“What’s going on here?” laughed Ted as he followed Mack into the white room.

Before anybody could answer, Eugene grabbed his shotgun. He used the brief distraction to take a shot at Mack. A split second later, the lights went out.

The black of the powerless white room lit up for only a brief split second by the muzzle flash of Eugene’s shotgun. What the large man didn’t realize was that Mack was no longer just a man. And no matter how much buckshot he put in him, the big Viking would keep coming.

All that stopped Mack from laying a beating down on Eugene was the lack of light to see by. That didn’t last long. Ted’s eyes were the first to glow red. When Mack’s did the same, the room looked well lit. The glowing was some form of night vision bestowed by the nanites in the bodies of the infected.

Having the ability to quickly heal any wound was useful but didn’t mean that getting shot didn’t hurt. With his new found night vision, Mack watched as his body expelled the buckshot pellets from his wounds. Each little piece hurt as much going out as in. He watched and winced as his nerves, muscle and skin regenerated on their own.

Mack watched as Eugene struggled to load more shells into his shotgun in the dark. He fumbled, dropping a couple. Before he could finish, Mack rushed him. With one elbow blow, Eugene was knocked unconscious.

“You’re going to stop there? Finish him off. Trust me, it’ll feel good,” encouraged Ted.

Mack didn’t listen nor answer.

“There aren’t any stairs. So I guess we’re going to have to wait for emergency power to come on. Until then, that elevator isn’t going to budge.” Ted flopped down onto the couch in the white room. “Take a load off big guy. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Mack didn’t sit down. Instead he leaned up against a wall across the room from Ted. They stared at each other. Ted broke the silence after a couple of minutes.

“How’d you end up here? I can tell from your accent you’re from Texas. How does a son of the lone star state end up in Vegas?”

Mack didn’t answer.

“Okay, I’ll go first. I was sitting in my offices in San Francisco and asked myself ‘where do I want to be during the end of the world?’. There was some internal debate. The answer became obvious, Vegas! I and a team of about twenty scientists and forty private security guys took my jet out here.”

“Why Vegas?” asked Mack, instantly regretting trying to have a conversation with a crazy person.

“Way I saw it, we needed to go to a city. The more populated, the better. That way we’d never run out of test subjects. But to be honest, I just wanted to play some poker before we released the nanites and everything went to shit. It’s that simple.”

That doesn’t surprise me. Only your crazy ass would want to play some poker before killing millions of people.

“You?” asked Ted.

At first Mack didn’t answer. Then he caved in. “I’m from Dallas.”

“Dallas! One of our biggest facilities were down in Dallas. How about that?” Ted was amused by Mack's answer.

Yeah, no shit.
I’m not going to sit here and listen to his nonsense. Amber is still up there somewhere.
“This is ridiculous! I’m not waiting here for the power to come back on.” Mack headed towards the closed elevator doors. He managed to wedge his fingers into the space between the doors. With a grunt he was able to pry them open.

What next genius?
Mack stared at the empty elevator shaft for a moment. The only way up was to climb the cables. It wasn’t going to be easy, but he had to try.

With a short run and a leap, Mack jumped into the elevator shaft. He grabbed onto the cables, mid-flight. His hands slid down them at first, grating the skin off his palms. But he quickly got his grip, then started climbing.

“You’re just full of surprises aren’t you?” Ted got up off the couch after watching Mack start to climb the elevator cables. He was going to follow but took a detour over to an unconscious Eugene. “This is a mercy,” said Ted before stomping on the former guard’s head.

Mack felt a shockwave on the elevator cable as Ted jumped and grabbed it. After looking down and seeing the CEO of Galatea systems start to climb up, Mack kept ascending. Finally he reached the elevator car.
I need to get in there.
He figured there’d be some access point on the top. To get there, he had to squeeze through the two feet between the walls of the shaft and the car.

Once above the elevator car, Mack kicked in the panel on top and watched as it fell inside. He then followed suit. From the inside, he pried open the doors.

Mack didn’t wait for Ted. Instead he kept moving, down the hallway that led to the elevator. He glanced at the cell that he passed every day for the previous couple of weeks. Inside was a blood bath. Even under the red emergency lights, he could see the torn up corpses. Only one of the prisoners was still alive. It screeched at Mack but quickly lost interest.

Do they not attack their own? Can it sense that I’m infected too?

“It’s almost like a piece of art. Right?” Ted quickly caught up with Mack and stood next to him in front of the cell.

Mack looked over at Ted, then back at the makeshift cell.
He shook his head slowly and
moved towards the lobby of the Golden Pony.

There was a set of double doors that separated the back hallways from the casino lobby. Mack slowly pushed them open, just enough for him to see. He knew that the Golden Pony had been overrun. But he didn’t think it would be as bad as it was.

Shit. Amber, I hope I taught you well enough not to be in there. I pray you reached higher ground.
No one was left alive in the lobby. Meat puppets streamed in through the broken front doors. They trampled the dead bodies of the Golden Pony security team. In other unseen areas, Mack heard people’s screams.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ted as he watched Mack slowly close the double doors.

“We can’t go through there.”

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to. There’s no other way.” Ted seemed elated while he delivered the bad news.

“Did you not hear me? There’s too many of them. We’d never make it out of the lobby. There has to be another way.” Mack couldn’t see how he and Ted could possibly make their way through the droves of meat puppets.

Ted smiled and walked towards the double doors. “Don’t be silly. We’re pretty much invincible.” He kicked them open despite Mack’s protests.

Immediately he heard screeches. The meat puppets converged on Ted and the double doors. Mack had no choice. Sooner rather than later he’d be found. He had to help the man he wanted dead because that was the only way he’d stay alive.

Ted laughed as he punched and kicked his way into the lobby. Every wound from the infected healed itself. He drew from a never ending well of stamina. The only way he was going to be stopped is if he decided to stop fighting. Drunk with power, that wasn’t likely.

Mack took a more measured and careful approach. As soon as he passed the threshold of the double doors, he looked for a way out of the lobby. And he found one in the nearby casino floor.

If I can just make it…
In seconds, Mack was attacked. Unlike Ted, who’d never been in a real fight in his life, Mack knew what he was doing. He took full advantage of the newly hardened bones in his hands. Every punch he threw was deadly. Not even the evolved meat puppets could withstand his onslaught.