Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (16 page)

“Listen, comrade,” I said
as I pulled my work ID from my pocket. “I’m not a zombie, I make
them.”

The policeman focused the flashlight on my
hand, something I thought unnecessary since there was already
plenty of light. He read the letters CIDEZ and his face changed. He
gave my identity card back to me while he spoke with a flat voice.
The same voice a zombie would have. If they spoke, of course.

“Sorry for the
inconvenience, you can continue.”

I started to walk hurriedly to the corner
where I could already see the work bus waiting for me. Behind me,
the owner of the undocumented zombie shouted while they cuffed him
and forced him into the patrol car. The living dead had no reaction
to the violence that took place before its cold eyes. It waited
patiently for the Special Brigade truck that would bring it to the
police station until everything was cleared up.

The bus for my work center is a Chinese made
Yutong. They are not well-known anywhere in the world. They are
made in a province of China that is more famous for its Shaolin
temple than for producing an urban transport bus. Before boarding,
I looked at the two enormous barricades on both sides of the
street. I read both slogans: FREEDOM FOR THE FIVE HEROES, the first
proclaimed; OUR ZOMBIES ARE NOT HOSTILE, BECAUSE THEY ARE
REVOLUTIONARY ZOMBIES , the second said.

I walked down the aisle of
the bus, finally settling into a comfortable padded seat. I sat on
the side where the barricade bore the propaganda of the five
heroes. They didn’t interest me, but the zombies did. Zombies are
my work. And if they don’t attack people it is because of people
like me. We, the grey scientific researchers without big salaries
or bonuses at the end of the month or hard dollars to spur us on.
We gave the Cuban Revolution the serum it needed. The final
definitive tool to prevent this country from going up like a powder
keg.

II

“It’s unbelievable that
they do things like this,” María began to say. No other person
within the limits of the Zombie Research and Development Center
dared to begin a speech this way. The majority of CIDEZ workers
were exemplary students in their specialties, almost all at the top
of their class and with golden honors at their graduations. All
following more or less the same profile: young, studious, white and
middle-class; respectful of the rules and fearful of the
Revolution. All pre-university graduates of exact sciences and
members of the University Student Federation. All incapable of
protesting a work injustice, pointing out errors to their bosses,
or criticizing a bad policy at the center.

But María was a case
apart. To begin with, she was licensed in physics, which made
her
de facto
an
oddball. An oddball among oddballs. On the other hand, she had been
as brilliant a student as she was undisciplined, to the point of
not managing to place her, on graduation, in any research center of
pure physics. But as her grades were a good reference, she managed
to get a spot at the CIDEZ, not as a physicist but as a computer
tech. That is the only characteristic of the physicists that I
personally envied. In general, they’re self-sufficient and arrogant
but it’s also true that they have an astonishing polifacetism. They
can undertake any task alien to their professional profile. They
easily adapt to the role of engineer or biologist. María was one of
those.

In the mere three years
that she’d worked at the Center, Maria had already become an expert
in modeling complex molecules on the computer. Possibly seventy
five percent of the modeling required to synthesize the serum was
due to her, in addition to administering our entire computer
network and having set up a cluster of computers that had nothing
to envy of any foreign University. Therefore, the research
directors, the administration, and the politicians endured her
disobedient and conflictive character, as well as her mania of
questioning research directives and telling the truth to any head
researcher’s face.

We could say that she was magnanimously
tolerated and secretly envied.

“It’s truly
extraordinary,” she said.

“What’s going on now,
María, that you’re complaining and complaining?” We were in the
room with the computer servers, enjoying the air conditioning that
was colder than in the science area.

“Nothing, it’s just that
yesterday a general showed up and asked to speak to the director.
Then they called the department head to his office. They were there
for nearly three hours. The general finally left at four in the
afternoon.”

“And? Zombies interest
everyone, but especially the military. It’s a question of national
security and those things.”

“It’s nothing to do with
national security! Look what they added to the work plan this
morning?”

She showed me her computer monitor. I leaned
forward and could read the list in an Excel table:

1. Voluntary zombification of military
specimens. Create conditions for inoculation through the serum.

2. Acceleration of the pilot tests of
version 7143 of the serum in aerosol form.

3. Begin first tests for a massive
zombification campaign through the experimental strain
VZA1-34907.

I was flabbergasted. If
that file were true, a massive zombification campaign was being
prepared. We’re not talking about taking criminals or dissidents
and converting them into obedient zombies through the serum. We’re
not even talking about a voluntary zombification to test pilot
vaccines. We were talking about converting an entire population
into the living dead. That couldn’t be possible. The Revolution
couldn’t give the green light to such a fascist project, it had to
be a mistake.

“Now do you understand
what I’m talking about? They’re trying to develop an air-born
Z-virus. A mutation of the virus that’s resistant to oxygen, that
propagates like the flu and not through saliva as with zombies. And
then to spray everything with an aerosol version of the
serum.”

“OK, let’s assume that
they trust that, at some point or another, we’ll come up with the
vaccine. Thanks to the serum we could make zombie
soldiers.”

“Are you crazy as well,
Ricardo? Don’t you realize that the term voluntary in this country
is very relative? Especially in the army. We’re not talking about
military professionals who decide to become zombies to better serve
the fatherland. Those are young guys doing their military service.
17 and 18-year-old kids. And they’re forced by military discipline.
And I don’t need to tell you what the word massive means when it’s
used here: we’re talking about a Zombie 1st of May.”

“I think you’re
exaggerating. Maybe they’re just looking for a practical use for
all those soldiers and cops that were bitten during the first days
of the Z virus outbreak?”

“Does the word
zombification say anything to you? If the military had aggressive
zombies locked up in some secret installation, it would make sense
that they requisitioned so much serum from us. And if it’s in
aerosol, even better. But they don’t need to zombify anyone. I’m
telling you that what they want is to inoculate healthy
individuals. Whether they volunteer or not.”

“We do that, too. We use
prisoners with death sentences and we also have
volunteers.”

“And
dissidents.

“Yes, dissidents, too, but
they asked for it by being counterrevolutionaries,
right?”

“Of course, of course,
those things are done for science. To find the vaccine. This is
different. This is creating zombies for war. Without even getting
into what they hope to do by contaminating the civil
population.

“You’re exaggerating,
María. No one is at war with us and I don’t think that, with the
zombie problem the way it is at this moment in the world, no
country is going to decide to attack us now. Maybe they want to
create a special force to capture runaway zombies or something like
that.”

“And here I thought that
you were the only person in this place with his head screwed on
properly.”

“I am, but you’re
complaining without any proof. In practice, we perform science
based on the sacrifice of human beings inoculated with the virus.
To a certain degree, we support the concept that the infected are
essentially alive although they have low cerebral activity. And
with the hope of one day finding a vaccine to undo the process.
That, my friend, is as inhuman as creating zombies for the army,
whether it is to kill other zombies or to march better in the
December 2 military parade for the anniversary of the FAR. The only
difference is that we are looking for knowledge and they are
looking for more practical goals. The world is no longer how it
once was and if you doubt that, look at the news and you’ll see.
These are no longer times of human rights, they’re times of
survival and we’re surviving.”

III

[Channel 4. Educational Channel]

In the early hours of the
morning yesterday, Containment Zone 7 in the center of Tokyo
collapsed. The mob of zombies destroyed the barriers and attacked
the self-defense forces. The troops deployed could do little to
control the situation in the metropolitan area of the Japanese
capital. According to experts from the Institute of Zombie Research
in Yokohama, the overpopulation of the mega metropolis caused a
“critical mass” of living dead that proved
uncontrollable.

[Channel 6. Cubavisión]

The United States Congress
approved a law that authorizes the use of automatic and assault
weapons within the areas of “zombie danger” after losing control of
Oklahoma and New Orleans due to attacks by the living dead.
Protesters gathered in Washington this afternoon, fearful that the
use of assault weapons will be widespread in areas of “zombie risk”
or “zombie quarantine”. The United States saw itself forced to
annul its strict arms control, so hard-won by the Democrats in
Congress, after the outbreak of the Z virus.

[Channel 12. Educational Channel 2]

Israeli authorities have assured that the
so-called zombie problem is controlled within the boundaries of
Jerusalem and that Tel Aviv is currently under zombie quarantine.
The Health Minister, in a press conference with the Minister of the
Interior, accused the Palestine Liberation Organization Hamas of
using zombies in suicide attacks against military targets in
Gaza.

[Channel 27. Canal Habana]

Members of the G-8,
meeting yesterday in Copenhagen, discussed a possible sanction of
the Security Council against the Russian Federation for using
tactical nuclear weaponry against a town contaminated with the Z
virus a few kilometers north of Georgia. According to NATO sources,
the attack was made using a projectile artillery and the “clean”
bomb created a detonation of 1.5 kilotons. Just 0.5 above the
nuclear ban decreed by the United Nations following the signing of
the treaties of nuclear non-proliferation between the United States
and the former Soviet Union.

[Channel 56. Multivisión]

The leader of NATO’s joint
command made public its intention to mobilize troops in the
interior of Europe to put an end to what they’re calling “minor
outbreaks of population infected with the Z virus.” Cities such as
Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest have had to be placed under quarantine
after the outbreak of the second mutation of the Z
virus.

The old woman stopped
flipping channels and began to watch the news program that was
already concluding. Then the image began to distort. The old woman
got up slowly and gave the set a few whacks. The image quickly
returned and the old woman sat down again. Five minutes later she
turned the television off. They didn’t have a soap opera until
nine. She knew that, but continued to try her luck. “Maybe they’ve
got something interesting on,” she usually said.

Mama knew I was arriving
because of the barking from the neighbors’ house next door. I’d
barely come in when she emerged from the kitchen and intercepted me
before I could reach my room.

“Did you bring the paper
from work?”

“I couldn’t, I’ll bring it
tomorrow.”

“But Ricardo Miguel, you
know that Fernando won’t leave me in peace without going on about
that paper for the Vigilancia.”

“Oh, Mama. Don’t worry. We
already did the serious paperwork. The day before yesterday we went
to the Oficoda and took care of the rationing. What could
happen?”

“If Raphael were really a
zombie, I wouldn’t worry. As long as I had the nerve to have one of
those things in the house.”

“Mama!”

“It’s true. You know I
feel. If one of those things bites you you’re dead even if you
escape the grave. But the fact is that we can be found out if that
nosy CDR president finds out.”

“Mama, the CDR isn’t like
it was in the ‘70s. Now they just hand out Chinese televisions and
try to stick their noses into your business.”

“Don’t think that just
because there are now stores and dollars, the Revolution has
changed. The old mechanisms still function. In the 80s, they took
away your grandfather’s telephone for having a child in the United
States. And if this man next door gets it into his head to verify
this business with your brother, they can even kick you out of your
job. Don’t fool yourself. Go find another paper that certifies that
your brother is more zombie than all those who appear on the news
biting those people out there.”