Rising: Parables From The Apocalypse - Dystopian Fiction (4 page)

Out on the Town

First thing in the morning, Christa and Leekasha made their way out of Fort Knox and headed for the army base.  It wasn’t far, so they set out on foot. 

“Why the army base?  Shouldn’t we be going somewhere without so many military personnel around?” Leekasha asked.  “The general didn’t even give you permission to leave, did he?”

“Did you forget who you’re with?  I don’t need the general’s permission to go anywhere.  I’m there of my own free will.  Remember, I’m the one trying to fix things from the inside.”

“Yeah, well I have a feeling the general might think differently if he knew why you were out here.”

“Stop worrying about the general, will you?  I stayed off his radar for over five years.  I can do so again if I have to.”

“Yeah, sure, if you want to live in a sinkhole for a few years again.  That had to be a real blast.”

Christa stopped walking.  “Do you want me with you or not?  I’m here for you, remember?  Your second choice backup.  I can just as easily head back.”

“Alright, fine.  Sorry.  I’m just nervous.  The pain at the beach was just intense last time.  I don’t remember anything like it when I was with Andreas.  There was a dull ache back then.  Nothing like at the beach.”

They both resumed walking.  “It’s just because you’re stronger now.  All your senses are more acute.  Don’t worry, I can help you through it.  Just remember, it’s all about focus.  You want to divert your attention away from the pain.  Find something else to focus on.  It’s like when you’re driving down a road at night.  You always look away from the lights of oncoming traffic by looking to the side of the road.  That way you’re not blinded, and you can stay on the road. You always know the pain is there, but you can’t stare directly into it.  Focus.  It’s all about knowing where to look.”

“OK. Focus.  Got it.  Stare at the white lines.”

“Not literally … just something other than the pain.  Try focusing on me when you hear them.”

Ten minutes later and they were entering the main gates to the base.

“This is a good place to start, since the army has all sorts of grunt jobs that are good for zombies.  Plus if they ever get out of hand, there are plenty of weapons nearby.  They were actually one of the first places to take zombies in as workers.”

Christa pointed out a maintenance building to their right.  “That’s likely as good a place to start as any.  Let’s head over there.”

“Let’s try and be a little discreet, shall we?  Let’s head around back.  You should still be able to hear any zombies on the inside,” Christa said.

They walked around back, but neither could hear them.  Working their way up the side, Leekasha stopped about halfway.

“I can hear one.  He’s close, I think.  Really close,” Leekasha said.

“Are you sure?  I’m getting nothing.”

“You said my senses were stronger. I should be able to hear more than you, right?”

“Yeah, I suppose.  I should hear something though.”

“Hey, c’mon, we’re supposed to be helping me here, remember?  You can do this already.  I’m the one that needs to learn.  Shit, he’s coming closer.  Ah, he’s so loud.  He hates being here.”

“I still can’t hear him.  Weird.  Focus on me.”

Leekasha covered her ears and closed her eyes.

“Leekasha.  Leekasha!  Me.  Remember, focus on me.”  Christa grabbed her by the shoulders.  “Look right at me.  Think about what I told you.  Don’t look into the lights.  Just keep them in the corner of your vision.”

Leekasha straightened up and pulled her hands off her ears.  She stared at Christa and nodded.  The lines of her face relaxed, and she almost managed a smile.  Then the side door opened and the zombie walked out carrying a load of garbage.  He walked right past them.  Leekasha flinched at first as he came by, but tuned her focus to Christa.  Eventually, the zombie went back inside and crossed to the other side of the building.  As he moved further away, Leekasha broke into a full smile.

“You’re right.  Christa, you’re right, that worked.  I could barely stand it at first, but eventually it got better.  You’re right, the focus thing really worked.  Don’t look into the lights. Wow!”

Christa didn’t answer at all.  She was just shaking her head.  “Are you sure?  Leekasha, are you sure you heard him?”

“Hell yeah I heard him.  He was crazy loud at first, then when he came out of the door it got a little intense, but I got used to it.  You heard him, didn’t you?”

“No,” Christa said.  “I didn’t hear anything at all.  Nothing.  That makes no sense.  I always hear them.  Always. For six years I’ve heard them.”

Christa ran past Leekasha towards the door and into the building.  Leekasha tried to grab her, but she was already through.

“Wait! Christa!” she called out.  “Don’t leave me here.  You can’t just desert me with all of them around.”

Five minutes passed as Leekasha huddled near the door.  Finally Christa came running out the door. 

“What the hell were you thinking, you crazy …”

“I couldn’t hear anyone in there.  There are a dozen or so throughout the building, and I couldn’t hear a single one of them,” Christa said.  “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.  Something’s changed. Something’s different.  We gotta get back.  This isn’t right.  You’re sure you heard them, right?”

“I did, and I thought for sure I’d hear them while you were gone.”

“No, they were all on the other side, you were OK the entire time.  Don’t worry.  Let’s go.”

They both hightailed it double time back to Fort Knox.

Regent Regalia

“General, you do realize that I have a pre-assigned schedule to keep?  I can’t just be drawn into these impromptu meetings every time you have some sort of crisis to deal with.”

The general shifted in his chair in the conference room before looking back up at the display screen. “Yes, ma'am, I’m sorry for this inconvenience, but I thought you should be aware of some new developments regarding the two advanced zombies in our care.  This shouldn’t take long.”

“Very well, General, proceed with your briefing.”

“Thank you, Regent.  I’d like to have Dr. Montgomery begin.  Dr. Montgomery.”

“Thank you, General,” Dr. Montgomery began. “I’d like to report that our initial testing with the new Pacize drug in our local region has been a success.  I know there’s been some concern caused by the events of recent months. Specifically, when the zombie Andreas murdered a number of innocents and started reviving a number of zombies.  I’m pleased to report that we have been able to block communication between the zombie Christa and Pacize II-controlled zombies.”

“That’s excellent news, Doctor.  What about the second zombie subject Leekasha?”

“As expected, Regent, her abilities are much stronger and she remains unaffected by the new drug.  We are of course working on this.  We have both of them in the lab on a daily basis.”

“I assume they’re still under the assumption that you’re working on a drug to target only the violent zombie population.”

“Yes, Regent, that’s what they believe we’re doing.”

“And how is the research going on keeping them out of human minds?  I certainly hope that work is proceeding with as much success.”

General Chambers proceeded to answer that question.  “Unfortunately, Regent, that work is progressing very slowly.  We’re not actually doing it at the facility here.  We felt the risk of having two test subjects so close to the research workers was too great.  The work is being done at the newly restored CDC facility in Atlanta.  We do have a single researcher from this facility in contact with them, but even that researcher is kept as far away from the two test subjects here as possible.  The work at the CDC is impeded by not having strong test subjects at their disposal.  They do, however, have the three that were revived by Andreas and Leekasha a few months back.  They are not high performing, but the hope is they will be enough to get a viable drug tested.”

“I’m a little concerned at the pace of this work.  The longer those two are there the greater the chance they’ll start controlling people on the inside.”

“Yes, ma'am, we know that, Regent, but we have controls in place,” the general said. “Both the doctor, myself and other key staff here are under constant video surveillance.  Our video feeds are streamed real time to the CIA facility in Langley and reviewed minute by minute.  If any of us were compromised by the two zombie subjects they have orders to pull us out of here and lock us up in isolation.  It’s the best we can do for the time being, Regent.”

“That’s fine, General, for keeping tabs on the two of you, but what about the subjects themselves?  Are we keeping them under similar surveillance?”

“We are as much as we can, Regent.  Our own staff carry personal video transmitters.  The two subjects are only monitored when they’re in range of video cameras around the facility.  We felt it was more important to nurture a sense of trust from the two of them so Dr. Montgomery could count on them cooperating with her lab work.  As you can see, that’s already paid off with our ability to block Christa from reading the others zombies.”

“Agreed, General.  Thank you for the update.  If anything else comes up, please do keep my staff informed.”

Dr. Montgomery spoke up.  “Regent, this news of a zombie exporting agreement between other countries and the Americas has reached Christa and Leekasha.  I’m concerned that it may have some negative impact on their dispositions and the work we’re doing here.  I was wondering if there was any real truth to the news reports.”

“Yes that was an unplanned leak of information I’m afraid, and yes, there’s truth to it.  You can’t be that surprised by the development, can you?  It’s no secret that our zombie containment program has played a big role in our recovery.  The rest of the world just wants to keep up with it.”

“Is there any chance,” Dr. Montgomery asked, “that you could delay the implementation, or perhaps create a story from your office that it’s just a rumor?  It would go a long way to ensuring trust with the test subjects here.”

“Come now, Doctor.  Surely you understand that the decisions coming from my office are solely based upon what Kongod and the will of the people dictate.  Neither you nor I get to dictate the will of this government office.”

With that, the video conference feed was cut.

“
Well, Doctor,” Chambers said.  “It would appear you have your work cut out for you.”
 

Christa vs Leekasha

Christa threw one more jacket and a pair of shoes into her pack.  She systematically opened and closed each drawer in her room without taking anything else out.

“That’s it,” she said.  “I’m out of here.”

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this,” Leekasha said, standing in the doorway of Christa’s room.  “You’re just running?”

“I’m not running.  There’s just no point in me staying any longer.  You heard what Montgomery said.  The drug for targeting only violent zombies won’t be here in time.  It won’t be here before that damn trading agreement starts coming into play.  They have no reason to fix the problem out there of millions of zombies imprisoned in their own heads.  There’s no money in it for them.  Why would I stay and be a part of that?”

“So, where will you go then?  What will you do?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll figure it out.  It’ll actually be easy for me now. I can’t hear them anymore.  I won’t need to be blocking out all their screams.  I won’t have to worry about only going to places where I know they won’t be.  Do you have any idea what a burden that is that’s been lifted from me?  No, of course you wouldn’t.  You’ve only been dealing with it for a few months, most of that time in isolation here.  You can barely handle even one at a time.  I’ve been dealing with it from thousands of them for years.  Years!”

“This running away still makes no sense.  You still want to help, don’t you?  Just because you can’t hear them, doesn’t mean they’re not out there.”

“I told you, I’m not running away, and yes I still want to help them.  I just want to feel what it is like to have that freedom.  Even though I haven’t been imprisoned by Pacize itself, I have been imprisoned by those that are under its influence.  They kept me isolated and hidden away for six long years.  For all of my young adult life I’ve been a prisoner.  I never got to be a regular teenager.  All those years I was hiding, and now here I am in this place, locked up again.  That’s it.  I’ve had enough.  I need a break, and I’m done locking myself into a room somewhere.”

“I can still hear them.  Have you forgotten?”  Leekasha looked to Christa, who was searching through her closet one more time.  “I’m still in prison.  Should I stay in prison for six years like you did?  Hiding in this place?  Maybe I’ll never get out.  Maybe I can’t block it like you could.  I’m the new mutation, right?  There’s only me, right?”

Christa stopped packing and sat on her bed.  “There are those other three they took away right?”

“Yes, but who knows where they took them, and besides they were useless.  The mutation never really took with them.  They’ve probably reverted back to slobbering violent beasts by now.”

Christa raised her head to look at Leekasha. “What do you want from me?”

“I want … I need your help.  You’ve been through this already, but it took you six years to get to this point.  I don’t think I have that long, and I’m not the original mutation.  I’m just a copy.  Andreas would have been much better at this if his head had been screwed on straight, but it wasn’t.  We can’t let them start selling us off to the highest bidder.  We’re better than that.  We … I have so much potential.  Besides, who else wants you?  Chaz?  Alex?  They’re not us.  They’re different.  You couldn’t even find them now if you wanted to.”

“They’ll come out eventually.  They won’t be undercover indefinitely.”

“Then what?  You going to become part of their family?  They’re just human … and you’re not.  You don’t think somewhere in their minds they just consider you a freak?”

“Stop it!  Alex wouldn’t think of me that way.  Maybe the old bastard would, but not Alex.”

“Maybe.  Maybe, he just wouldn’t say it.  It doesn’t matter.  You know they’re not the future, right?  You know what I’m capable of.  Just imagine if everyone could do what I could do.  All this time you spend working with them, you’re just delaying the inevitable.  I’m the future.  Not them.”

“We’re the future together, Leekasha.  It’s not just a case of one or the other.  That’s the kind of thinking that starts wars.”

“Do you honestly believe they think that way?   That they want to share control with us?  Does it look like they’re sharing today, right here and now?”

“No, not all of them, but some are starting to see things that way.  Dr. Montgomery, for instance.”

“Oh yeah, Dr. Montgomery.  You realize they’re keeping secrets from us, right?  They think they’ve taken safeguards to keep me out of their head, but they don’t know how far I’ve really progressed.  Would you like to know the secrets they’ve been keeping?”

Christa nodded her head yes.