AZU-1: Lifehack Read online

  She wandered to the kitchen, flipping on a terminal while she nibbled, and browsed over to a newspaper, with the intent of heading for want ads. However, the headline on the front page caught her eye before she flipped past.

  “4 Violent Unexplained Deaths” The article went on about how four bodies were found, three of them seemingly bitten and brutalized by the fourth person, whose cause of death was still undetermined.

  “Lovely,” Regan thought, “I guess every city’s gotta have its freakazoids.”

  Regan finished her little breakfast, picked out a handful of places to apply for menial jobs and two clubs she missed yesterday. She slung her guitar over her shoulder and headed out.

  The closest she got to a guitar job was a ‘maybe later down the road’ from an assistant manager who seemed to be being more polite than anything. On the ‘crap-job’ front she got a few ‘the manager will be in on-‘, and a lot of ‘not at this time’ responses.

  It’s not like she was expecting to fall into a multi-million salary job playing guitar in the first week, but it would have been nice. Between today’s discouragements and the breakup with Kris in the back of her head, she felt the need to visit her ever-supportive brother again for lunch. She punched him up on her mini terminal.

  “Hey Regan!” he soon responded, obviously multitasking with work.

  “Hey Harold. Whatcha up to?” Regan said with wistful melancholy.

  “Oh, I’m at work, so I’m... you know.. working.”

  “Yeah. Have ya done lunch yet? Mind if I pop in again?”

  Soon enough, Regan and Harold were sitting down in the cafeteria again with lunch paid by Harold. Although it wasn’t by any means the biggest contribution Harold had been making to Regan, standing there while he paid did make her feel the most like a mooch. This job thing had better happen soon.

  “Hey,” Regan mulled while idly forking her food, “That jerk isn’t here today.” Not that she missed him.

  “Jonathan Coll? No, he quit this morning. No real notice. He just said he quit, and left.”

  “I’m sure the interns are devastated.”

  Harold raised his eyebrows for a second. “Well, two of them certainly are, but not over Coll. That thing on the news... the deaths? Did you hear? Two of them were interns here.”

  “Shit! Really? Did that happen here?”

  “Yeah. Well, in the lower levels somewhere. A whole wing has been taped off by the cops. It’s got a lot of people rattled. Lots of dumb rumors running around. So how’s the job hunt? Wanna apply for intern? I think there’s an opening.” He said jokingly.

  “Ugh. I doubt I’m qualified.” Regan said, missing or ignoring the tactless attempt at humor.

  Harold sighed sympathetically. “It’s going that well, huh? Well, don’t worry, it takes time. Something’s bound to pop up.”

  ~~~

  Regan left AutarLabs and headed towards home. The failures in finding a job nagged at her with self pity. It’s thick stuff, self pity; no wonder it makes one walk slower. It had nothing to do with Kris. Nothing.

  The early afternoon sun came down starkly overhead, making sharp shadows which weren’t all that dark, except compared to the shafts of light that managed to sneak between buildings. For all its cleanliness and technological perfection, Autar only seemed to feel less and less familiar the longer she was here.

  Even the streets were clean. Unusually clean. Drop a sandwich, pick it up, and still eat it clean. No doubt some technical wonder kept any offending dirt away. Even the alleys looked clean.

  Regan couldn’t help but stop and stare for a moment down one of these clean alleys when she saw a homeless man in one. It seemed quite unlike Autar to have any homeless. He looked out of place, way back down that clean alley.

  No. He looked a bit too out of place. He was leaning against the wall, not standing straight and facing away. Regan ventured down the alley timidly until she got close enough to see a smear of blood along the wall. She broke into a jog. “Hey, man! Are you alright?”

  The man turned around when he heard her. His head was bleeding, a part of his skull caved in. He raised his bloody hands towards Regan. One of the hands had two fingers hanging limp, nearly ripped off. Regan’s first reaction was repulsion, then concern. “Hey, just stay there, I’ll get help.” She was reaching for her mini-terminal but the man staggered forward, ignoring her suggestion to stay put.

  “Just hang on! You’ll just aggravate the-“ she looked into his eye for the first time. This was not someone who was in pain, or wanted help. His expression was hollow except for a slight frown on his brow, and clouding of his eyes. Regan stepped back.

  “I said stay there.”

  He ignored her request, and walked forward at an unsteady pace. She could have run but being so close and looking this thing in the eye, her instinct chose “fight”. Without thinking, she swung her guitar as hard as she could.

  A splash of blood from his previous injury hit the wall when the guitar impacted his head, and he was forced against the wall. He didn’t seem very bothered by it. He corrected his step and continued forward, grabbing the stem of the guitar with both hands and snapping it in two.

  Regan still had her hand on the head of the guitar. She pulled it back, splintered wood on the one end marred by blood from the creature’s hands. She looked at the shard of guitar, and looked at the thing advancing on her. She stabbed the splinters into his abdomen. That didn’t really bother him much either. After dropping his part of the guitar, he reached out to grab Regan’s head. She skipped back out of the way then ran to the mouth of the alley, getting about five meters between them. A few other passers by were now looking at the man as well. He walked towards them bit by bit, the head of the guitar still sticking out of him.

  Regan called the police on her terminal. A message came on that sounded recently (and hastily) recorded. “At this time, emergencies throughout the city have unfortunately risen beyond expected numbers. We cannot respond at this time. If this is in regards to a violent death, or an untalkative assailant, we can only advise that you avoid the assailant, and not confront them directly. We will be addressing incidents systematically. Please leave a-“

  “Yeah, wonderful” Regan said, disconnecting. She saw another person leaving a frenzied message anyway on their own terminal.

  Down the street, a scream was heard. In the other direction, a storefront window was smeared with blood. Wide eyed, Regan gritted her teeth and muttered “Just wonderful.”

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 5: Cavalry

  ~~~~~

  Regan called Harold while walking home, crossing the street often, or even walking in the street to avoid incidents where there had doubtlessly been attacks. There were more and more of them and it was becoming rare that there was not some blood to be seen somewhere, if even just a humble smear from a wounded hand across a door.

  One of the more staggering displays of gore was a large pool of blood that almost spread across the street with significant large splatters up the building it was next to. In the middle were several bodies, some of which were moving. She dared not get closer. It was impossible to tell if the movements were living people in the last throws of death or dead people in the first groggy motions of becoming one of the legions which were spreading across the city. The red dragging footsteps that led away from the pool were even less inviting to investigate.

  Screams came from random directions. Distant, lonely, desperate calls of fear or despair as the living became a rapidly rarer sight.

  A man came by running for his life, terrified. He bumped into Regan. He wasn’t wounded, but was not alright. Regan felt the need to say something to him before he ran off but she couldn’t think of anything helpful.

  Finally Harold picked up one of Regan’s calls. “Regan! Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. I was gonna head home. How about you?” Regan’s casual answer surprised even her. She felt like her mind was working on two separate levels. Outwardly, she was handl
ing everything cool and relaxed, while inside, she was ready to scream.

  Harold was understandably tense. “I’m fine. We’ve been advised to stay indoors until this blows over. Are you closer to home, or here?”

  “Home.”

  “Okay, go there, lock the door, and keep an eye out.”

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I planned.” Regan was quiet for a moment, wishing her brother was by her side. The noise around her was creeping closer constantly. “Stay safe.”

  She disconnected and kept going. Regan considered calling Harold back just to have someone to talk to, something calming. She saw some of the dead wandering out in the streets. Some in groups. This wasn’t about to get any better.

  Shortly after, she could hear a commotion ahead. Yelling, shooting. As she neared the next intersection, she could tell the battle was less than a block to her left. She stood at the corner of the building, and peeked around it.

  Just over half a block away, half a dozen police officers were firing pistols and shotguns into a crowd of dead that continually ambled towards them. Now and then one of the walking would fall, only to be trampled by the one behind it.

  The chaotic battle and the moans of the dead struck her. There was no denying what these lost souls had become. There was no other word but ‘zombie’. It was just too unreal. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen.

  Regan was trying to decide if she should go talk to one of them to ask for information or just stay out of the way. Her train of thought was derailed when a door to a building between her and the police crashed open, and more zombies started pouring out. They weren’t fast, but they had a steady persistence to them.

  “Hey cops!” Regan yelled over to them, “Run over here! You’re gonna get cut off!” Only one heard, but he then saw the growing group forming behind them, and alerted the other officers.

  Regan started crossing the intersection as she watched the officers begin running towards her. One started firing at the zombies in the way. Regan dropped to the ground to avoid stray shots.

  The zombies were closing the open path between Regan and the police. Hoping against the obvious, Regan watched as her view of the officers became obscured by the mob. She heard more shots being fired. A frustrated yell. More shots.

  Less shots.

  A scream.

  One more shot.

  A cry of hopeless anguish.

  A vivid scream that ended with gurgling blood.

  Regan was still lying prone on the pavement, staring forward at the churning mob. The sounds of combat were gone, replaced only with deathly low groans and a silence beyond sound.

  She saw some of the zombies looking around. They’d spot her soon. Time to quietly leave. Once she made it out of view, she ran until she couldn’t hear the moans anymore.

  Some time after her hands stopped trembling, she heard a sound she hadn’t heard in the city before. A deep hissing, overhead. She looked up to see a large aircraft. It looked only slightly more aerodynamic than a small house. It was compact, but even from the ground it was easy to tell that it was big. It bore no tail, just stubby stabilizer wings with turbines on them. It passed under the southern bridge and just kept going, despite Regan’s waving.

  It looked like it was planning on landing somewhere in the next block or two, so she ran to go meet it. As she got closer, Regan began seeing other people who were also heading for the aircraft.

  Once she got closer to the thing parked in the street, it was rather daunting. Its bulk took up more than three lanes, leaving very little space for its side fins and turbines. A mob of people was already forming and three soldiers were guiding people into a cargo door.

  Regan went up to one. His uniform seemed a little unusual though she couldn’t put her finger on why. His shoulder didn’t bear any markings to identify his unit.

  “Hey Mister soldier guy!”

  The soldier didn’t even really look at Regan, keeping his attention on the mass of people. “Miss, just get aboard the airlimb, we’ll get you out of here.”

  “Airlimb?”

  “Yes Ma’am. Helicopters aren’t cleared for flight in the middle of the city. None are nearby anyway. We were nearby when things erupted, so we’re using our four airlimbs to get people out from as deep in the city as we dare.”

  “Four? There’s a lot of people in here! When’s there going to be more help?”

  “I don’t know about that Ma’am, I’m just doing what I can.”

  “What about AutarLabs? My brother’s there!”

  “Aut-“ he flinched, momentarily glancing at Regan. “I personally don’t know what order we’re evacuating where Ma’am, we’re just doing our best.”

  Regan stepped back, and pulled out her mini terminal, and called Harold. It rang.. and rang.. finally it picked up.

  “You’ve reached Harold Grier, I’m busy at the moment, so leave a message and I’ll get back to you.”

  Regan gave a frustrated sigh. “Harold, I wanna know what’s going on there. Have you heard anything about being evacuated?” Regan paused for a sigh. “Aw fuck it, I’m coming there. Call me when you get this.” She stuffed the terminal away with an extra “Fuck it!”

  This caught the eye of the nearby soldier. “Ma’am, if I heard right, I wouldn’t suggest going to AutarLabs.”

  “Why the hell not?” She snapped.

  “Well, aside from the attacks all over the city, we’ve had reports that AutarLabs is having especially strong creature-presence.”

  “Creature?! Call a duck a duck already, we’re dealing with zombies.”

  A passing evacuee piped up, “I think they prefer living impaired.”

  Regan gave him a vicious glance as he slunk away.

  “Regardless Ma’am,” the soldier continued, “I really don’t think you stand much of a chance unless you come with us now.”

  “.... and my brother...?” she quietly said to herself. She looked down the street. It was mostly clear, how hard could it be to find Harold? She patted the soldier on the back. “Hey man, thanks, but I’ll catch the next bus.” and she ran off.

  “Ma’am! Get back here!” He took a few steps to chase her but saw she was determined. He decided to stick with the crowd who were more cooperative.

  ~~~~~

  Chapter 6: New Reign

  ~~~~~

  As Regan got farther from the airlimb, its sounds, and the people, she began to realize that the city had been undeniably, fundamentally changed, and it would never be the same again. Despite distant sounds of the airlimb taking off, sporadic gunfire, and the occasional sounds of the odd lurking, groaning zombie, an oppressing quiet managed to weigh so heavily that it seemed to slow Regan’s stride.

  Night had snuck up and few lights were on. Many were damaged. Others just had no one to turn them on. Cars sat silently in the streets here and there and no people could be seen, not even panicking ones.

  The gore which in daylight had stood out bright and alarming had now sort of blended in with the city. From immaculate in the morning, the evening bore dingy bloodstains and smears from desperate panic. These weren’t stains on a sparkling city. The blood was now part of it. This was Autar’s blood. This was just the way things were now.

  Regan found herself staring at the blood and occasional body so intently that she forgot momentarily about the escape she had just recently refused. With her heart pounding, she forced herself to think of the brother she aimed to find. Focus.

  A flicker caught her eye, and she looked up to a streetlight that struggled with some malfunction. A few blocks further down she could see a digital advertising screen showing a mix of static and some computer error message. Regan imagined some control room somewhere, maybe half shot up, maybe being ripped apart by zombies.

  She turned a corner and stopped in her tracks. Just before the next intersection the street was filled wall to wall with a mob of zombies, very similar to the group that had claimed those cops earlier. This group was closer, and she could se
e them a little better. Many were badly injured, missing limbs, chunks out of their torsos or heads. The injuries would be incapacitating if not fatal to humans, and crudely displayed the vitals of these freshly claimed. The variety of people who had been taken into the mob included brutalized children, and more police officers. How many of the zombies’ injuries were from gunfire, and how many were inflicted while the victims were still living?

  Regan realized fully that these monsters were recently people. Ordinary people with lives of their own. All that had been taken from them. They were dead, but not resting, their bodies being puppeteered around in cruel dispassion to what those people meant. Revulsion, pity and anger washed over Regan, and forced her to stare.

  They were headed for her slowly, as if they just happened to be ambling in her general direction. It was more than enough to justify a detour. She picked a street and walked quietly out of view of the mob, hoping not to attract attention. Safe from their gaze, she ran for about a block and a half.

  She paused to rest, leaning against a building to catch her breath. Across the street there was a church. A crude sign was strung across the closed doors. ‘Evacuated’ She wondered if they were alright, or if they were part of the mob she just ran from. Did they toss holy water at them?

  A familiar sound approached. An airlimb passed overhead heading the opposite direction she was. She considered trying to wave it down and just get out. But they’d never spot her, and she had a brother to find. She hardened her resolve and started walking again.

  Less than a minute later she heard the crash echo from behind. It was too much of a coincidence; it had to be the airlimb. Her first reaction was to run and help but then she realized the mob was between her and the sound. She could only hope that if the people on board were alright from the crash and had a clear path to the outside. It was about this time she realized how hard it would be to eventually find her own clear path out. It’s not as if she’d find her brother, get a happy ‘game over’ and get magically teleported away.