A World Reborn (Book 2): Global Outbreak

by Thompson, Chris

  “Because you don’t want your people to be taken prisoner.” Roy commented simply.

  “No. In fact, that’s not even close to the reason.”

  “Then tell me.” Roy demanded.

  “It’s because we actually have an incredible amount of respect for the infected.”

  Roy laughed derisively.

  “You can’t be serious.” He stated incredulously.

  “I’m deadly serious, Mr. Snipes. Before the virus, those people had no purpose - no drive beyond their base desires for money, fornication and possessions. After they become the infected, they are used as an instrument to help to rebuild the world; they’ll help to shape it... ”

  “I’ve heard all that before. I just don’t understand how you can claim to respect the infected.”

  “Because they are the very definition of being Reborn; they’ve lost the shackles that bound them to the old world and are working towards the new. Once they’ve done their part, we can take up the torch and move the world forward.”

  “But why willingly allow themselves to be injected? Why if, as you say, they want to build this new world, are they willing to sacrifice themselves even though they won’t be in it?” Roy wanted to know.

  “Because they believe in something greater than themselves, Mr. Snipes. They believe that their sacrifice is an important stone being laid for the foundation of the new world - a better world.”

  Roy shook his head.

  “So every single one of those soldiers out there has been indoctrinated into your world view? There’s no dissention or concern?” Roy questioned. The Ancillary shrugged.

  “Because we’ve been forced to recruit from so many different sources and organizations, I’m certain there are some who have marginally different views. However, I remain convinced that they are loyal to the same basic principles we adhere to.”

  “Who vetted them? You? The Teacher?”

  “There were those who were responsible for that task, but I wasn’t one of them. As for the Teacher, I’m certain he’s aware of everyone who has a serious role in the movement. If there’s someone we’re making use of at the moment who doesn’t have the best interests of the new world at heart, then they will find a final test waiting for them at the end.” The Ancillary concluded, an ominous hint to her tone.

  Roy stared at her blankly for a few moments, unsure of what to say next.

  “I can see we’re not going to agree, Mr. Snipes, and that’s okay for now. Perhaps, after some time has passed, you’ll change your way of thinking. Just remember that the birthing process is painful, even dangerous at times, and yet it gives life; that’s rather similar to what we’re doing. Not that you and your wife would know about that.”

  “What the hell do you mean by that?” Roy snarled, rounding fully on the Ancillary as his anger flared.

  “I meant no offense. I just know that neither of you have any children. What interested us more when we looked into you was that you never had any tests performed to find out if the problem lay with you or her. May I ask why?”

  “No!” Roy snapped, turning and starting towards the door out of the cells. He swiped the keycard, powered through the door and slammed it shut behind him. It was then he became aware of the strap of the assault rifle across his chest, and for the smallest of instants, considering using it to execute the Ancillary - to put an end to her twisted games once and for all.

  Roy walked away, leaving the side room and heading towards the stairs to go up to the second floor, as he’d told Melissa he would. Hopefully Melissa would get back soon and then... then he’d be forced to decide one way or the other what he was going to do.

  Melissa slipped the radio back onto her vest with concern churning relentlessly in her gut. She didn’t like how... uninterested, Roy had seemed when he answered her. Sure, he could have just been tired, he could also have been busy shoring up the defenses of their temporary base, but Melissa knew that Roy had been separated from his wife for too long. Knowing the Ancillary’s deviousness, Melissa began to suspect she had offered him some guarantee of her safety if he... what? What could she want him to do, release her? Melissa hated having these pinpricks of doubt over the one person she’d trusted in the Seraph, but something was wrong, she was certain of it. However, until she saw him again, there was nothing she could do about it. So she again firmly pushed her doubts and suspicions to one side; although she was positive that when she got closer to the police station her concerns would return stronger than ever.

  Melissa had discovered that apart from a bump and broken skin, to which she had liberally applied an antiseptic she had found in Charlie’s apartment, the injury to her head was not as severe as she thought. It still hurt like a son of a bitch, however, and Melissa had searched for some painkillers, but was forced to make do without them. Fortunately, she had found her gear and, after some exploration, discovered they were in a three storied building with a pair of spacious apartments on each floor. Charlie had secured the building quite well and had accumulated a decent amount of supplies, although the only extra ammunition he had accrued appeared to be from the weapons of the Reborn he’d fed to the infected. In his apartment was a picture of his wife and child; it looked like they’d been happy, with both of them smiling while enjoying some outdoor venue. Melissa replaced it carefully on the table, and while Rochelle sat on the bed in the next room eating a candy bar, quickly rifled through Charlie’s belongings in the living room. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but looked anyway.

  After a short time scanning through some books on the desk near the window, she found Charlie’s journal, and it proved to be an interesting read. Melissa learned that his wife and child had died on the first day of the outbreak in the city. Initially, his penmanship was normal, even though his language was understandably dark and troubled, and it became clear to her, from the phrases he used, that Charlie had at one time either been in the military or the police service. As she continued to read the entries however, his writing became erratic and his descriptions lost the crisp clarity he had previously employed. Charlie had tried to save people, tried to reach friends and loved ones in the city in order to bring them back to his apartment, but at every turn, people he knew and cared for were killed by the Reborn and the infected. The entries clearly showed the rapid deterioration of his mental state; becoming less focused and informative, and sounding more delusional, bordering on paranoid... but, in a zombie apocalypse, could someone desperately trying to survive really be described as paranoid, Melissa wondered, or were they simply overwhelmed by fear?

  Charlie ranted and raved about collaborators; people who were abandoning their families and joining the Reborn - after passing ‘tests’. His scribbled notations declared he intended to learn more about this by capturing a Reborn soldier for interrogation. The next page of the journal had a number of bloody fingerprints on it, indicating his success before Melissa even read the crazed ramblings. Charlie explained he’d tortured the Reborn, burning and cutting him until the soldier had finally broken - ‘spilling his guts’ Charlie had called it. The park, he had divulged, was being prepared as a makeshift heliport in order to extract the civilians who had proved their worth to the Reborn during the outbreak, which confirmed in Charlie’s mind his suspicion that people - traitors - had been working with the Reborn even ahead of the soldiers arriving in the town. Poor Charlie, Melissa thought sadly, he obviously didn’t realize that, just like the invasion of the Seraph, an advance party of indoctrinated Reborn would have been sent in to inject themselves so that they could turn and infect the inhabitants. The survivors, having proved their strength, would then be offered the chance to live, if they accepted the Reborn ideology. At that point, Charlie began taking prisoners. On anyone he found alive and uninfected he performed his own ‘test’ to see if he could determine their allegiance. He didn’t make mention of anyone passing his test, instead, he described the process of severing the achilles tendon and forcing his victim to undergo the same
pain his family had endured before they died. As Melissa scanned the entries she counted more than a dozen people - whether they were Reborn or not - who had failed his test, with the majority probably being immune to the virus. To Charlie, this unquestioningly proved they were members of the Reborn. Melissa wasn’t so sure, but read on to the end. The final entry indicated that Charlie had scouted out the landing zones and noticed that not only were civilians being loaded onto the helicopters, some were being offloaded too. Melissa looked at the date Charlie had written before the entry, and saw that it had been written the day before. Somehow, Charlie had even crept close enough to overhear snippets of conversation and had noted them too, although he hadn’t fully understood what they meant.

  ‘They talked about a Witness heading this way with the Ancillary. Yeah, I know who that witch is, but a Witness? What’s a Witness? What would it even be? I bet it’s someone else in their hierarchy, someone they’ll miss once I get my knife on them. I’ll make sure to cut them nice and slow then feed them to their zombies. Let them get eaten and see how they like the pain.’

  Melissa knew for certain that the title of Witness that she owned wasn’t in the news, so it was infinitely more likely to be something that the, admittedly deranged, Charlie had indeed overheard. It also meant the Reborn had definitely been waiting for them here, and had perhaps even been ensuring they came in this direction - hence the other extraction points being overrun before they arrived. The question of exactly how was the most obvious, the Ancillary had earlier disclosed how they had been able to track them and had informants relaying their movements, but to lead them here meant someone had passed on DeWitt’s secret orders known, according to him, by only three people. The why was also of interest; although she suspected it was related to their idea of Melissa being willing to join the Teacher, as also divulged by the Ancillary.

  “Find anything interesting?” Rochelle asked as she entered the room.

  “Some, but mostly just more questions.”

  “What about?”

  Melissa closed the journal and quickly scanned the desk in case there was anything more to learn before turning to look at Rochelle.

  “It’s not important right now. We’ve got to get back to my friend and then we’ll figure a way out of the city.”

  “I thought you wanted to find the bus first?”

  “I did, but I’ve no idea where we are. At this point we need to get to some vaguely familiar ground, regroup a little and then go and find Kevin.”

  “So how are we going to get back to the police station?”

  “We’re going to hug the walls and be careful which streets we take, and hopefully Roy can guide us in.” Melissa commented, and then she saw a folded piece of paper on the floor which she must have dislodged while she was reading the journal. Picking it up, she unfolded it and discovered it was a hand drawn map of the city with various street names on it. The map was not drawn to scale, but there was a large ‘X’ on some of the streets and an ‘S’ on others.

  “I think Charlie might be able to help us out after all.” Melissa muttered.

  “How?” Rochelle asked.

  “I think he managed to identify where some of the sniper teams are as well as the blocked off streets. He hasn’t, from what I can tell, mapped as far as the police station but it’s enough to point us in the right direction. Unless the infected have since migrated and blocked the way, this should ease our journey considerably. And even without a collar, getting by the infected can be easier than you might think. As long as we don’t get cornered or caught up in anything, it’s definitely possible to escape them smoothly.”

  “It sounds really dangerous.”

  “That’s the way life is now, Rochelle. Go one way, you’ll have to deal with Reborn snipers; go the other, it’s the infected. You have to pick your poison and roll with it.” Melissa explained.

  “I don’t know whether I’m impressed or scared of how... casual you are about this.”

  “Casual?” Melissa asked, looking sharply at Rochelle. “I’m terrified, but that doesn’t help me. If I stop moving, if I stop fighting, I’ll die and that’s how you need to look at it. If we get separated or I go down, you’ll be on your own. You’ll need to keep moving and find a way out.”

  “But you don’t seem afraid. I just don’t know how you can do it.”

  “Like I said, I don’t have a choice. Roy, my friend, hasn’t spoken to his wife since this started. He’s a tough guy, but in this situation he needs my help, so I can’t let him down. The FBI agent, Kevin, I’m sure he’s a good man but he seems totally out of his depth. Right now, he’s stuck out in the streets and I don’t have any idea where, but I’m not going to leave him alone out there. If I were to allow myself to fully feel the fear I’m experiencing, then people who need me could die, and I won’t let that happen.”

  Rochelle looked at her blankly for a few moments and then nodded, comprehension dawning across her face. Melissa took another look at the map and tried to burn the names of the streets into her memory, and then she folded it back up and shoved it roughly into her pocket. She took hold of the stock of her assault rifle and put it in a better position for quickly readying it to fire. The silenced rifle had been lost, perhaps discarded by Charlie or simply left where Melissa and Rochelle had been taken prisoner.

  “Time to go, Rochelle. Stay close.”

  Kevin laid the tablet computer on his lap and looked at his prisoner. He was still sitting with a murderous scowl on his face, but was yet to make a move. The gentle baying and groaning of the subdued infected was, in the strangest way, almost relaxing. Kevin wondered how he could have mentally reached the point where the non-aggressive sounds of the undead could be relaxing, but that wasn’t his most pressing concern at that moment. He had used the map application on the tablet to figure out where he was and the route he needed to take back to the police station, at least, the route he could take if the streets were clear enough. The problem he faced was what to do with his prisoner. Kevin suspected they’d disabled the collar he had been wearing because the heart rate monitor associated with it had flatlined. The collars, heart-rate monitors and associated virus injectors they’d recovered from the Seraph had been examined and revealed that the collar, when not attached to a living person, would automatically deactivate. Plus, it could also be remotely disabled, as his had been, which meant he needed to keep his ‘friend’ alive, and hope that they didn’t discover he was a prisoner and deactivate his collar. It seemed inevitable however that they would eventually try to raise him on communications, to which Kevin couldn’t allow him to respond - as he would undoubtedly use the opportunity to inform them he had been captured - and his silence would disclose something was wrong. On the other hand, they could be spotted by another Reborn. In either scenario, Kevin would be doomed. He sighed, feeling tired and wishing he could just sleep. He looked at his prisoner and saw the malice in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you tell me why you’re with the Reborn?” Kevin asked him.

  Sean scoffed by way of response.

  “Come on, we’re going to be stuck together for a while. I promise we can go back to killing each other pretty soon.”

  “What’s it to you?” Sean asked.

  “It’s pretty hard to take you guys alive, and the ones we have managed to catch don’t talk.”

  “And you think I will?” Sean asked incredulously.

  “You already are.”

  “True enough.” Sean commented, and then shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, if I can ask anything, where’s the Teacher? Is there a cure for the virus?”

  “I don’t know any of that.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  “You’re a member of an organization without basic knowledge of whether you could be cured if you became infected? Or where your leader supposedly is?”

  “Listen, Mister FBI guy, I’m not one of those damn fa
natics you’ve been dealing with, and I’m not an idiot you can trick into revealing some kind of secret. I’m a professional who’s in this for one reason only: money. When this Teacher guy has finished, I’ll be set for life, and to do that all I need to do is make sure the virus is deployed and that no one leaves the infection site without clearance. There, that’s what I’m here for. You, this Witness, all these other people, you’re just obstacles between me and a paycheck.”

  “You’re getting paid?”

  “Quite a lot by the time we’re done.”

  “I thought the Teacher hated the current system of wealth and the power it gives?”

  “Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but you can’t assemble a force as large as this one with fanatics alone; you need professional soldiers, and professionals - in any world - expect to be paid. Money makes any world go round, Mister FBI guy, and when the Reborn are done I’m sure it’ll make their world go round too.”

  Kevin looked at the man and tried to determine if he was telling the truth. His body language indicated he was, but there was something unsettling about what he’d just said; the Reborn, or rather, the believers in the Reborn cause, placed some kind of value on what they were doing. As abhorrent as it was, Kevin could at least understand that some purpose was driving them. Sean, if he could be believed, was simply chasing a payday and that somehow made him seem more evil than the other Reborn Kevin had encountered.

  “So you’re just a... a sociopath.”