AZU-1: Lifehack Page 11

Regan ran all the way back to the quarters that the Major had assigned her, pushing over a couple soldiers along the way just to blow off steam. She blasted into the room and slammed the door as hard as she could. Her body suddenly felt limp, and she collapsed to the floor sobbing.

  “That stupid bitch!” thought Regan, “Stupid straight bitch!” She chose to blame straightness, ignoring her own inappropriately strong approach.

  Though the tears had started before she made it out of the mess hall, she only noticed them now. They fell in front of her with wet slaps against the polished cement. She wanted to sit there and cry forever, but she was eventually forced to accept that her knees were sore. She dragged herself up onto the bed, knocking over a couple beer bottles that she’d emptied shortly after her talk with the Major. The male soldiers were ever so co-operative in helping her find a few necessities. She quickly emptied another. With some of her own possessions here, it almost felt like her home in Autar. The tiles were cement instead, her plant wasn’t here, and she didn’t need to barricade the door. The urge was there though.

  She curled up on the bed, and obsessed over Alisia.

  Regan sat up and looked in the nearby mirror. “Shit, look at me, I’m fucking hot!” she thought with self admiration and an alcohol head rush. “I mean, really. I don’t care how straight she thinks she is, look at this. I mean, damn! I’d do me!” She flopped back and tried to think of evil plots to seduce the lovely Alisia. The gears in her head ground away. When she managed to grind away all her lusty tension, the alcohol commanded her to sleep, where she dreamed.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 21: Unattainable

  ~~~~~

  Alisia was in the middle of cleaning her P90, but her mind was elsewhere. “That crazy bitch.” She thought. But the moment after thinking it, she felt a little guilty. After all, Alisia was perhaps the first live human Regan had seen in a long time.

  Who knows? Maybe she had some kind of psychological reaction and bonded to her or something. She might need some serious help. Living in a dead city, alone? She had to be nuts to begin with not to evacuate. Alisia wrestled with irritation and pity, then realized that the parts to her P90 were about as clean as they’d ever get.

  She put it back together and cursed Regan under her breath again. Her dinner still felt sticky on her, even though she’d changed her shirt already. She headed for the main showers.

  Regan lurked the halls, mind filled with... a mess. That’s all there was to it. Being among living people again was difficult. Thankfully there was only the occasional soldier passing by. She couldn’t stop herself from suspiciously eyeing strangers in the hall to make sure they were really among the living.

  Just when she was about to head back to her room she spotted Alisia far down the hall, carrying a towel.

  Regan grinned like a fiend. Towels usually implied all kinds of fun things. Regan discreetly followed Alisia and was thrilled to see her walk into a door labeled ‘WOMEN’. Looking around for witnesses, Regan realized that no one would think it strange to see her going in too. Playing it casual, but with nerves rattling with anticipation, she walked over to the door and opened it.

  This side of the main women’s washroom was all stalls and sinks. Further down was a doorway to a changing room. Regan silently crept near it and heard the sounds of Alisia getting ready for the shower. Then she heard bare footsteps softly walking away. Regan peeked in and saw no one. Alisia had left through the far doorway, into the showers.

  Regan continued forward, stopping for a moment to admire the neatly folded pile of clothes that Alisia had left behind. She defeated the childish urge to search for her unmentionables and headed on in search of the grand prize.

  The sound of water began and a chill ran up Regan’s spine. A mildly insane grin was plastered on her face. A few more steps forward... The main shower room was divided by occasional frosted glass walls. One such frosted panel stood fifteen meters or so across the shower room, and obscured the finer details of Alisia as she showered.

  Regan’s first instinct was to run over there and open up with the crudest innuendo she could muster, delivered in the sweetest possible voice.

  But for some reason, she couldn’t force herself any closer than the doorway. She was stunned by the beauty of the target of her desire.

  Regan leaned against the wall, staring as her breathing deepened. Regan felt suddenly so helpless. Her usual overconfident thoughts were swept away by the idea of being curled up with Alisia and drifting into sleep. Regan slid down the glass and sat for a while, fighting tears.

  When Alisia was done her shower Regan was already gone, unnoticed. Alisia dried off and got dressed. She couldn’t find her dog tags though.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 22: ReEntry

  ~~~~~

  Alisia walked into Regan’s quarters since she wasn’t answering the door. Regan was curled up tight on the bed asleep, still in her usual clothes, clutching the blanket like her life depended on it. Also clutched in her hand were Alisia’s dog tags.

  Alisia stepped closer, being careful to avoid the growing sprawl of beer bottles. She knelt down intending to take her dog tags back, but on getting that close she saw the expression on Regan’s face. It spoke of anguish. She looked at the tags again. It would be hard to take them anyway, the chain was around Regan’s neck. Alisia suddenly felt like she had intruded on something private.

  She backed out of the room and slammed the door shut, following with a few loud knocks. She heard a startled mumble inside. That did it. Alisia knocked again at a more reasonable volume, and in a few moments Regan appeared. The dog tags were no longer around her neck. They looked at each other for a few moments in silence before Alisia remembered why she came.

  “Oh, the Major says he got a lock on your brother’s tracker. It moves around a bit, so he’s uh.. still walking.”

  Regan, still groggy, was a little surprised at the news. “Mm, alright then. Stick a VTag on it and when this headache clears up, I’ll go in.”

  “It’s already active.”

  Regan looked Alisia up and down. “Uh.. well, thanks.” She went back in and closed the door on Alisia. Alisia stood in front of the door for a moment as if there was something else to be said. Nothing came to her, so she left.

  A handful of hours later, Regan walked into the bay of the south gate. She tapped her comm on. “Major? I’m ready to go. Open up.”

  “Alright, Ms. Grier, good hunting.” the Major’s voice replied.

  A sound came from behind her. Alisia hopped off the irradiator, where she’d been sitting and waiting. She walked up beside Regan, facing the gates as they opened.

  “Come to see me off?” Regan asked.

  Alisia scrunched the corner of her mouth, adjusted her belt, and huffed. “Nah.” She paused to adjust her eyes to the sun. “I’m coming along.”

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “Well, the way I see it, I hauled you out of there, so you’re my responsibility.” The truth was that this was a military operation, and Regan was a guest.

  Regan stared at her for a moment, trying to squeeze out every drop of meaning out of her words, but Alisia just stared forward at the city. When the gates finished opening, Alisia leisurely stepped forward. Regan kept pace and followed.

  The last time Regan looked at the outside of the city like this, it was new. Brimming with people and hope. Now for the first time, she saw it like other people did. A shrine of ruin, a phantom of disaster. It was a unique flavour of dread that never found her while she was inside.

  “Corporal Parker, watching your six again today, Captain.” came through the comm.

  “How ya doin today, Parker?” Alisia responded.

  “It’s okay, Cap.”

  ~~~

  In relative quiet, the two walked into the city. The sun was intense today, and cast bold, stark shadows. As they passed between buildings, the shadows seemed to swallow them up, especially as they neared the shade cast by the south b
ridge. Compared to the blinding brightness they had left, the shadows felt like midnight. The tracker’s VTag was floating ahead.

  As they drew deeper into the outskirts, a mob of two dozen or so zombies rumbled out of an alley. “Enemy contact!” Alisia called out. For the number that were there, Alisia felt justified in pulling forth her ‘Bad Mojo’. She aimed the bulky weapon, and was deciding on where in the group to place the fragmenting shell when crackling erupted behind them.

  Sustained fire from Parker and two other zipper operators shredded the zombie formation. A dusty squirming pile was soon all that remained. Regan looked back at the speck far away that housed Parker. “Nice one, boys!” she exclaimed.

  “Happy to be of service, Miss.” Parker grinned.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Regan said, pointing at the Bad Mojo.

  “Magnetic Rail driven frag grenade launcher. All cold kinetic damage, so as not to violate the ‘no explosions’ rule.”

  “40mm?”

  “Yeah,”

  “What’s this no explosions business?”

  “For some reason, we’re not allowed to use explosive devices in the city.”

  “Hm. I have a few nasty things squirreled away that I’ve never used.. maybe a good thing I didn’t... what would happen?”

  “Don’t know.. only the higher-ups do.”

  “Hm. Can I play with that?”

  “No.”

  The next while was pretty quiet. The bridge shadow had them, not to mention the taller buildings doing their best to rob any glimmer of sunlight that dared to squeeze by. The brightness of the sun behind them felt like another world.

  “Hey, Alisia, got any non-fragmenting bullets?”

  “No, what for?”

  “Eh, I have a stockpile nearby. I wanna pick a couple up.”

  “Whatever.”

  A block to the side or so, Regan opened up a dumpster and jumped in. After a little bit of rummaging she came out with fresh ammo that would fit into the handgun she procured at the base.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 23: Rest

  ~~~~~

  For some reason, Regan seemed pleased at the general location of her brother’s VTag. It seemed she had something planned. “This’ll be easy.” Regan said. Alisia didn’t see what was so hard about blowing away one more zombie.

  It wasn’t long before they snuck up on a group of four zombies mulling about heedlessly in the end of an alley. One of them was carrying around a pink plastic flamingo, a popular item among the zombies. There had been a factory in the city that made them, and for whatever reason the zombies seemed fascinated with them. Another wore fisherman’s hip-waders. Another had T-shirt that said ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead’. The last one was pretty plain, as zombies go. What he did have though, was a glowing VTag superimposed on the base of his skull. Here was Harold Grier.

  “Ok, say when.” Alisia said, aiming her P90.

  “Don’t hit Harold.”

  “Huh?”

  “Just don’t. Blast the other three.”

  “Ok.”

  Regan took aim and gave the word. The three others were torn down. Harold drew his attention to the girls and began walking towards them.

  “Let’s go.” Regan said, turning around.

  “What? Aren’t you going to finish him?”

  “Exactly. Finish him good. Not like that.” Regan pointed at the felled zombies, still squirming and making horrid sounds. “We’re going to do this right.”

  The two of them walked about half a block ahead of Harold, who mindlessly chased them as fast as he could go. Poor Harold was unlucky enough to not only be a zombie, but to be one of those really, really slow zombies.

  They soon came to a factory. Here, Regan knew she’d have to get Harold a lot closer or he might lose sight of them and lose interest. As Harold got closer, Regan leveled her P90. “Sorry bout this bro.” She fired a burst, and the fragmenting bullets took off his left arm. He moaned, and Regan’s face showed a bit of pity. She took aim again and took off the other arm.

  Those arms used to hug her not so long ago. Look at them now; rotten, discarded meat in the road. Harold kept trudging forward. Now his only weapon was his teeth.

  Regan let him get close, then quickly grabbed him into a headlock.

  “Ew.” Alisia said. Regan dragged Harold into the factory, and Alisia followed, P90 at the ready. They came to a large room with a massive metal door.

  “Alisia, can you open that?” The effort of keeping hold of Harold as he struggled and tried to bite was no small feat.

  Alisia opened the metal door and saw inside a small metal room with blackened holes along the walls, ceiling and floor, and fine grey dust in the corners. Alisia now understood the plan and stepped aside.

  Regan was struggling a bit with Harold. Even ‘perfectly armless’, a zombie had considerable strength. She tossed him into the small room and stood back. Harold flopped around a bit and began to stand. Regan pulled out the pistol and loaded the non-fragmenting rounds.

  “Rest, Harold.” She fired once into his chest, where once, a good heart pumped. Harold staggered back and Regan slowly closed the door with a resounding thud. Regan leaned back against the door. Soon, scuffing sounds were heard against the door and Regan winced, and pointed at a large red button over to the side.

  Alisia went to it, and after getting a nod from Regan, pressed it.

  The sealed metal room rumbled violently as it flooded with flame. Regan slumped to the ground. After a minute the sound subsided.

  Regan got up and opened the door. A wave of heat escaped, and a bit of grey dust. She stood there for a while to let the room cool down. When she thought she could stand it, she stepped closer and knelt by the freshest pile of dust by the door. She used her finger to sift through the dust and found what she was after. The bullet she shot into his heart.

  “Let’s go.”

  They walked in silence through the growing shadows of the city, eventually coming to the park near Regan’s ‘home’. She led Alisia over to a spot by a tree that had gone fairly undisturbed. The grass here had been cut in the last month or two, unlike the rest of the park that was wildly overgrown.

  A foot wide hole had been dug there. Regan walked up to the hole and tossed in the bullet from Harold’s body. She shoved dirt on top of it with her hands and stomped it down. Alisia stood nearby, not wanting to interfere. Regan pulled a silver ring out of her pocket and tossed it on the little mound of dirt, and stepped back.

  “..... it’s done.”

  Only a few quiet moments had passed when an uninvited guest appeared from behind. A lone zombie staggered towards them.

  Regan bristled with anger and charged it, with only her leather-gloved fists at the ready. Alisia called to her, but Regan would not hear. Possessed by rage, Regan proved too fast for this lone zombie. A wild swing knocked it back, and a second blow knocked it down. It tried to get up but Regan kicked and kicked as she screamed and cried. After a some lucky essential blows broke enough brittle bones, it was no longer able to fight.

  She staggered back and looked at it. Her fist had a smear of its blood, her boot was a gory mess. Her eyes blurred with tears.

  “Did I say it was over?” she called to it. No reply.

  “Did I say I was finished?!” She yelled. It laid motionless, save for the twitches and writhing all zombies made in defeat.

  “GET THE FUCK UP!!” Regan stared at it and caught her breath while Alisia just stared, stunned.

  Finally Regan stumbled back to the little grave and sank to her knees, suddenly feeling so tired. She was still trying to catch her breath. Alisia knelt down beside Regan and put a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’ll be okay now.” Alisa said, almost as a question.

  Regan put her hand on Alisia’s. Her breathing eased a bit. “Thank you.”

  They sat there for a while, quiet and still.

  At length, Regan took a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s go. I can leave the city for good
now.” They got up and began to leave. Regan looked back at the grave with a little smile.

  “You goof. You and your stupid nanites. Look where it got you.”

  Alisia stopped suddenly. “Nanites?”

  “Yeah, you know, the stupid little robots that make the zombies move?”

  “......... what?”

  “What, what?”

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 24: Nanites, DUH.

  ~~~~~

  “So,” Alisia said, speaking through the comm to the Major, “It seems that AutarLabs was working these microscopic little robots, and these little suckers were organized from a separate computer, run by some kind of customized A.I. or something.”

  The Major paused in consideration and responded. “So... what, you’re saying that this whole thing is caused by a crazy A.I.? Why? How?”

  “Well, not sure how, but Regan’s brother was in the middle of figuring it out when he died. Some interns were killed without explanation and then bam, shit hit the fan.”

  “All this time... and Regan Grier knew about these things all along?” The Major was a little stunned.

  “Yup.” Regan said, “I didn’t think it was a secret!”

  “So there is no biological infection,” the Major mulled, “which is why we never found any virus or anything.”

  “And if you think about it,” Alisia added, “when we burn wounds, that’ll destroy any nanites. Any of them that are recognizable at that point might just walk away before we get any zombie flesh under a microscope.”

  “What a fine mess. There’s going to be some heads rolling over this muck-up. So what we need to do is unplug the AutarLabs computer running the A.I.” The Major said, starting go get excited, “And this could be all over!”

  Parker joined in. “I’ve just put a VTag on AutarLabs.”

  “Regan, you up for this?” Alisia asked.