“Well, he asked for one,” Dr. Forbes replied. “The moment we got him here, this fellow kept insisting on having a stamp. I take that back. It was more of a moaning ‘Staaammmmp,’ but you get the idea. So we finally dug one up to see what he would do with it.”
“Staaaamp?” Mark echoed. “Like that?”
“Try it farther back in the throat. There’s a visceral moan to it.”
Mark tried again, and Dr. Forbes nodded in approval.
“What does he do with this stamp?” asked Mark, turning his attention back to Ryan.
“He likes to press it against pieces of paper.”
“Is that all?”
“Oh, god, no!” he exclaimed, jumping up from his seat and running over to the glass. “See those papers he’s working on? Those are tax forms we downloaded off the Internet. He can’t seem to understand or do much else, but he’s still quite the tax man.”
“Looks like he’s just scribbling nonsense and stamping all over it to me,” Mark commented. “That would never be accepted by any agency as a legitimate form.”
“You’re looking at this from the wrong end,” Dr. Forbes replied. “That right there was a pre-completed form. We’ve given him everything from a simple Objection to Real Property Assessment to an Application for Paraplegic Property Tax Reduction. We wanted to see what he would do, as that was his job.”
“It still looks like utter nonsense to me.”
“Most of tax law is that way, wouldn’t you agree?” the doctor asked. “And with that being true, we must ask ourselves, is he performing at any lower level of functioning? It would seem not.”
“I think we’re looking at different things, then.”
“We’d like to bring in an auditor or county tax collector and verify how well he’s doing,” Dr. Forbes said. “But then that opens up an entire can of worms about security issues, sensitive data and whatnot. I think the best course of action would be to ship the forms out instead of bringing someone else in. That way we’ll still get a professional opinion of his abilities without having to worry about what an outsider will say and do about our little pet project. The only real downside is the time.”
“Have you tried any specific tasks?” Mark asked.
“We will in the next day or so,” Dr. Forbes replied. “I have a colleague who’s researching this place called Colmera Springs. According to the other witnesses you brought back, it was the last place this subject was collecting taxes on. We’d like to see what he does if we bring the subject up.”
“Why? Does it hold some significance for him?”
“Well, Mr. Conner here has mumbled the name a few times between groans, so we thought it would be a good place to start,” he explained. “We’ll be monitoring vitals, brain activity and so forth as well, and perhaps that will lead us to something that tells us why he hasn’t succumbed to the infection.”
“I do have a question,” Mark said, adopting a serious tone. “Let’s talk disposal.”
“Disposal?”
“Yes, disposal,” Mark replied. “I need to know what plans you have for disposing of all subjects once you are done—living and dead alike.”
“Oh, I see,” Dr. Forbes said hesitantly. “I think we should talk about this in a more private setting. We have some naïve employees, and we should probably do our best to keep it that way in case one comes wandering in.”
And with that, the good Dr. Forbes led Mark Hoffer out of the room.
For the second time that day, the door to Jack’s cell slid open, and a server entered with a parfait. At first, there was no incident, for Jack was still deep in his exercise of wall counting. But once the parfait was placed on the floor, what was left of its short life ended badly.
Jack threw up his arms and howled. He throttled the invading dessert by its base and rammed himself parfait-first into the security door that had just closed. The glass that it was served in broke apart with little protest. He continued to throw himself against the wall, working himself into a further frenzy. Every beat of his withered fists sent yellow globs of parfait splattering across the room and onto concrete walls.
While it was true that Jack had now twice become enraged at the sight of a parfait, it was not because he hated them. As far as desserts went, Jack was quite fond of the parfait, even postmortem, but he was not fond of the bastardization of the recipe. He couldn’t understand why they insisted on serving him peach.
Jack was sure, even with his decayed frontal lobes, that everyone else on the planet knew that strawberry parfaits were the only true and acceptable sort. No respectable dessert lover would ever settle for anything else. After all, what type of nut would even consider putting peach into a parfait, and then have the audacity to serve it to another? Peaches weren’t red. They tasted nothing like strawberries, and they were fuzzy of all things.
When Jack’s anger had subsided, he sat down, saddened at having his hopes for a proper parfait dashed again. As if the previous laundry list of problems with peach wasn’t inclusive enough, Jack happened to be mildly allergic to the fruit, and it caused him to hate the parfait even more.
He looked down at the pieces of glass and parfait scattered across the room. The bits of glass picked up the light from the ceiling, sparkling playfully. They reminded him of something. At first, he didn’t quite understand the significance—not that he ever had—but it slowly brought about the sense of loss. It was a loss not only in regard to a tasty dessert but also a loss of something shiny. It was something he had once had, and something he would need to get back. And if he could have a meal along the way, all the better.
Jack shuffled to the door and pressed his head against the thick Plexiglas. The hall on the other side stretched as far as his limited view granted. With such a vast array of options, Jack felt that at least one direction would lead him to where he wanted to be. All that was left for him to do was to get past this door. He tried a few more times to thump his way past it, but the door held fast. So Jack stood at the entrance and decided to wait.
It would open eventually, as it always had.
Eventually.
* * *
Danita sat in the middle of her holding cell, frustrated. More than once, a tasty person or two had entered her new home, and more than once, she had tried to initiate a game of Eats. The restraints on her ankles, however, kept her from doing any such thing. Every time someone entered, she would lunge, the restraints would hold fast, and Danita would end up face down on the floor. The last couple of times, the men had at least been kind enough to leave her with a parting gift, namely a cheap, red, ballpoint pen and a new pad of paper.
But Danita had no want or need for such things. They weren’t tasty, and they didn’t even run away and scream when she grabbed them. Thus, with no Eats to be had, or entertainment to be provided, Danita turned to devising a new game to play: Escapes.
The main objective of her game was simple: get out. This was easier groaned than done, however.
Danita stood and pulled on her leg. The restraints remained in place, as always, and she considered chewing through her ankles. It would solve the restraint problem, but it also meant she’d be without her feet. And she was fond of those, since they let her lurch, plod, amble, lunge and so forth. So without an immediate solution, Danita’s standard two zombie thoughts decided to consult her third. And after some persuasion and ego-boosting, number three agreed to help, but it demanded some peace and quiet first.
Danita sat down. Thought number one continued to want to leave. Thought number two decided that it wanted to make more zombies for company. Thought number three pointed out to each that they were still shackled to the wall, and the chief ingredient for making zombies was nowhere in sight. It then wondered if people were really the only types of things that could become zombies. She glanced down at the pen and a pad of paper still in the room.
She picked up the cheap, red, ballpoint pen and studied it. When the cram session between it and her forehead yielded nothing but
a small indentation, Danita placed it in her mouth and chewed. It was a relaxing motion, one that felt familiar. After another dozen bites and a tiny crack in the plastic, she took the pen out of her mouth and waited.
Aside from a small leak of ink, the pen remained unchanged. An hour later, almost entirely de-inked, the pen still refused to get up on its own. Pens, Danita decided, could not become zombies.
Giving up on that endeavor, she turned her attention to the pad of paper that remained unmarred. She picked it up, pulled at it a few times and noted that it came apart easier than flesh. She also made several origami boulders, none of which seemed to do much, even when she chewed them. Danita then concluded that paper was not a zombie ingredient either and became mildly depressed at the lack of progress.
The door slid open, and a man who was dressed in a rubber suit took two steps into her cell. In one hand he held several more pens, and in the other, he held three pads of paper. In her excitement, she lunged at him, arms stretched out and teeth bared.
Just like the other countless times before, Danita’s restraints held fast, and she hit the floor, face first. Her visitor nimbly hopped back and shut the door behind him.
Danita’s third thought began to work again. The first two were quarreling among themselves as to which foot to lead with on a proper lunge, but her third felt that something significant had happened. After quieting her thoughts yet again, Danita pushed herself back up and sat. She looked at her chewed pen, then to the door, then back at the pen again. With great effort, she tried to recall as much as she could about what had happened. She knew that at one point in time, it was just her and the pen. She also knew that she had chewed the pen and then the door had opened. Clearly then, chewing the pen opened the door and invited more pens into the room.
Pens, however, were not her goal. In a bit of brilliance, thought number two blurted out that pens often came with people, and thus Danita settled on the fact that chewing pens brought new pens and new people. The people the pens brought, however, were quite deft at being able to escape her attacks, even though people before had not.
Danita thought about these two contrasting points for a few minutes.
The shackles continued to be the root of this problem. If lunging with shackles drove humans away, reason dictated that holding still for a long time, much longer than usual, would draw them close. And if they were close, she could eat them. Danita accepted that she didn’t quite understand all the details, but then again, she didn’t know why chewing a pen summoned more pens, yet it did.
She picked up one of the new pens and started chewing, hoping that her latest theory on the shackle-human relationship would pan out.
An hour later, Danita lay still on the floor, chewed pen and paper about. The door opened, and a man cautiously entered her cell, yet she remained motionless.
As her theory predicted, some five minutes later, he was half an arm’s length away.
Chapter Twelve
“So these are zombies, right?” the security officer asked as he escorted Mark Hoffer through Tau Seven.
“You tell me,” Mark replied. He eyed the guard’s badge and noted his security level, or rather, lack thereof. “Tell me—Ken, is it? What are you cleared for?”
“I’m cleared, don’t worry,” the guard replied. He then tapped a chrome revolver hanging off his hip. “I’m security.”
“Exactly,” Mark said. “You’re just security.”
“Come on,” Ken said as he cleared the two through a set of airlocks. “I might not work the labs, but I’ve seen enough to know you guys are breeding dead things. You’re going to use them in bio-warfare aren’t you? Some super army, maybe?”
“We’re not discussing this any further,” Mark said.
“But—”
“And unless you want a world of hurt in every sense of the phrase, I’d suggest you stop prying.”
Much to Mark’s relief, Ken let the matter drop after muttering something he didn’t catch. Though he found the guard’s questions irritating, he pushed the exchange out of memory as fast as he could. Today was a good day, and Mark was determined to let nothing ruin it. Not even a nosy, portly guard like Ken.
The two reached one of the monitoring rooms, and after Ken swiped a badge, Mark stepped inside. The room itself held screens of all shapes and sizes, most finding scant space on the already cramped desks and walls. Upon the screens’ displays were different vantage points of countless rooms. A few of the more ambitious monitors displayed three or four images. Standing in the center of the room was Dr. Forbes, who looked up from a mess of paperwork the moment Mark stepped into the room.
“Some of your personnel really like to pry into things,” Mark said once the doctor had dismissed the security officer. “I hope it’s not going to be a problem.”
“Ken?” Dr. Forbes asked. “He’s harmless. Anyone worth anything around here knows not to give him the time of day. But he’s top-notch when it comes to keeping the grunts on their respective work floors and out of more sensitive areas.”
“Glad to hear it. I’m not in the mood to look into anything else around here.”
Dr. Forbes began sorting the papers in his hand. “Eager to leave?”
“You have no idea,” Mark said. This morning marked his last day in the underground complex. Though its facilities were a technological marvel, the cabin fever that came with it all was something he was eager to be rid of.
“We only have a few things to tend to, so I won’t keep you long,” Dr. Forbes said as he handed him a pair of forms to sign. “I’m glad you came on such short notice. I was afraid I might have missed you.”
“Almost did. But I’d appreciate it if we can make this brief. I want to make my kid’s recital.”
“Gladly. What’s he play?”
“Cello.”
“How old?”
“Ten.”
“Mmm.” Dr. Forbes paused and rubbed his chin.
Mark took a half step toward the scientist. “Something to say on the matter?”
“Just seems a bit cruel is all,” Dr. Forbes replied. “Making him carry around something twice his size and turning him into a prime target for bullies. I’d think you’d want a more—how should I put this—alpha male child, at least in image.”
Other than the slightest tightening of his right forearm, Mark didn’t visibly react. “He’s plenty alpha,” he replied calmly. “He knows fifty-seven ways to kill a man with a spoon. But his mother and I think he should be a well-rounded individual, like the Spartans.”
“I think you mean the Athenians.”
“What?”
Dr. Forbes sketched a quick map in the corner of one of the charts. “This is Ancient Greece,” he said, pointing to his doodle. “The Spartans, over here, were the warriors. The Athenians were the cultured ones and would have produced a cello player, assuming that it had been invented at the time.”
Mark studied the map for a moment. “Regardless,” he said. “They were all Greeks and conquered the world. I think we should model our behavior off such success, which is precisely why my son plays the cello.”
“Points taken and noted.”
“Good, then let’s get down to business so I can leave.”
“I won’t keep you long, I promise.” The doctor turned and pointed at one of the larger monitors with his pen. “Take a look at this.”
Mark shifted his attention to what was being shown. Jack, Danita, and Ryan Conner were on screen, each in their respective cells. Jack was still standing at the door. Danita was curled in a ball, chewed pen in hand, and Ryan was still collecting taxes with the piles of papers he had.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Mark admitted. “They seem to be doing their own thing, if you can even call it that.”
“Precisely!” the doctor exclaimed, slapping Mark on the shoulder. “They’re each, as you so pointed out, doing their own things. They’re completely individuated from each other. Our next step is to demonstrate scienti
fically what ‘their own things’ are.”
“To what end?” Try as he might, Mark did not see why this was so exciting, and he hoped this would be more promising than the previous conversations they had had.
Dr. Forbes didn’t reply immediately but wore a puzzled expression. “Motives, my friend,” he finally said. “Motives. They’re the key to it all.”
“I would think the key to everything would be more biologically based,” Mark said. A heavy sigh was the prelude to his next statement. “Look, I understand that this is only the fourth day for tests, but my superiors are going to want real progress, with results, and done in a reasonable timeframe. I can’t go back and report how one dislikes éclairs—”
“Parfaits,” the doctor interjected. “Not éclairs. There’s a difference.”
“And one likes to stamp paper is not going to cut it,” finished Mark, ignoring the interruption.
“First off, what you say does have merit.” Dr. Forbes said, exchanging his cheerful nature for a more serious one and enumerating with his fingers. “Second, I can assure you that all these tests and observations will tie back into the biological side of things as well. If, for example, we know that someone is hungry and has the motive to find food, we can start looking as to why that is. Is his stomach simply empty? Or is perhaps something going on neurologically that makes him think he’s hungry?”
Mark understood where this was headed, but he kept silent and let the doctor continue.
“Third,” Dr. Forbes said. “The study of motives gives us some idea of what may or may not have decayed or otherwise been altered in each subject’s mind. This again can lead us in all sorts of directions as to their biological composition. The technological spin-offs from understanding this area of study are far too numerous even to begin to list.
“Last, if we know their motives and what they respond to, it may lead us in a direction to control them. And if we can control them, we can deliver a product to you. Isn’t that what this is all about in the end? A viable product?”
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