Z-Boat (Book 2): Z-Topia

by Suzanne Robb

  “Doctor, please have a seat.”

  “Sir, I know you want results, but what we’ve found is the same as what I told you last month. The outbreak being caused by the bacteria in the water the firm brought up cannot be cured with the technology we have.”

  Henry stood and walked to the window, he leaned forward in an attempt to let the glass cool him down. Moscow was covered in snow year round. The lack of sun and shifting weather systems had turned this place into an eternal winter wonderland. He hated it, but he’d been assigned this post and could not say no. He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and turned to look at the pathetic little man who never had the answers he wanted.

  “So, you mean to tell me the billions of dollars I’ve given you and your team of crack researchers has gone to waste? You have no cure, or vaccine for me?” Henry towered over the little man.

  “No… nothing. As far as we can tell, once infected the human host dies and the bacteria takes over, colonizing the base of the brain and turning them into… well… into zombies, sir.”

  Henry cleared his throat as he circled the doctor. This situation needed to be handled delicately, or it would be a public relations nightmare.

  “Hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of people have been infected by crops grown using our water, so that hits the middle class demographic who buys up our irradiated foods, and then those who can afford the filtered clean stuff have also been infected. Not to mention the goddamn uber zombie Unit 784 you created, that is biting a bloody path across Europe creating stronger smarter zombies. Because of this company, we have caused the goddamn apocalypse going on out there.”

  The doctor looked at him with terror filled eyes. “Yes, sir, but… you planned it. When the reports first came in the firm ignored them, and then when the number of casualties increased you had us look into it. Instead of stopping the distribution of goods to the public, you increased it. I saw the reports.”

  Henry nodded. “Right, of course I did, glad to see we’re on the same page. You seem to be feeling quite bold, talking to me like that. You must know how this meeting is going to end. Now tell me something. Who else knows this, other than you of course?”

  James stuttered, “My—my whole team knows. We’ve been working around the clock for you.”

  “Okay, but no one outside your team… wives, husbands, kids, parents?”

  James looked at the floor. “No.”

  Henry knew a lie when he heard one. “No one on your team decided to warn anyone, nothing was whispered during pillow talk? Stay away from the water…”

  “Absolutely not, we’re professionals.”

  Henry felt dizzy and reached out to grab his desk for balance.

  “Mr. Williams, are you okay?”

  Henry felt the doctor put a hand on his shoulder, rational thought left his head. He needed to protect the company at all costs. The Russian Firm depended on him to maintain their status in the world. Turning on the doctor he lunged at him.

  Too shocked to react in any coherent manner James could only stare at him. Henry closed his eyes and squeezed the pudgy neck in his grasp. Sweaty hands clawed at him, but he refused to let go.

  Henry counted in his head to try to calm down. When he reached twenty-eight, the body beneath him stopped moving. He stood, rolled down his sleeves, and straightened his tie. One problem taken care of, now for the rest of the doctor’s team, and their families.

  Henry tapped his temple, and a small beep issued from his temple. “Call Finnegan.”

  Three rings later and a man with a gravelly voice answered. “Finnegan’s travel agency.”

  “I need the daily special, a lot of them.”

  “That’ll cost, depending on how many orders you want. Sure you can afford it?”

  Henry stopped for a moment, the thoughts swirling around in his head were making it difficult to remain coherent. The doctor had about twenty people on his team, and say they had family and friends. His head pounded.

  “I’ll need at least seventy-five.”

  The man on the other end let out a whistle. “You can’t afford that.”

  “I can. You’ve worked for me before, and you will again. I’ll wire the money, details, and a bonus if you can get it done within the seventy-two hours.”

  Henry hung up the phone, and then grabbed his communication panel. He accessed the company account and transferred a hundred million to Finnegan’s account. Then he attached a message indicating he wanted the entire research team led by Dr. James Winston taken out, as well as friends and family. He offered a bonus of twenty million if Finnegan found any stragglers on the run and took them out as well.

  Seconds after he hit the send button the room spun around him. He hit the ground with a thud, and then thought no more.

  * * *

  Ally woke to a bright light in her eyes. She tried to raise her arm to block it, but only got it a few inches into the air before it fell back onto something soft.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Ally opened her mouth to speak, but the pain was so intense her eyes watered. Her throat felt like a giant scab, and trying to speak caused it to tear off.

  “Don’t try to talk, just nod your head, blink, whatever you can manage.”

  Ally nodded, or at least she hoped she did. The voice hovering above her was male, and sounded calm and serene. A sharp pain in her arm, then she wanted to float away listening to the soothing tones.

  Visions of zombies danced in her dreams, they taunted her. One of them bit down on Marcus’s shoulder and she stood there, encased in cement, utterly useless to help him. She screamed in frustration as his eyes turned white and he turned to her with an accusatory finger.

  Ally woke up screaming and felt several hands holding her down. She ignored the flare of pain in her throat, zombies were holding her down to make her one of them. She fought harder, and then one bit her. Just a small pinch, and then she fell unconscious.

  Ally floated in the raft, an ocean of zombies surrounded her. In her lap sat a display panel with all the information she needed in order to take down the firms destroying the world. At her fingertips, digital proof the Russians had been warned of the risk of using water not fully researched and went ahead with it anyway. More reports ignoring outbreaks in small regions. They knew, but did nothing to stop it.

  In such a rush, they cut corners, falsified reports, and got their product into the mainstream market. Their intentions might have seemed good at first glance, people were drinking brownish sludge, and crops were withered husks blowing in the wind before a miracle supply of clean water was found.

  However, early testing of the liquid indicated it contained a bacteria of some sort. One that displayed organization, and the ability to adapt. Keeping this information under wraps, they continued to deliver water to those who could afford it, and used the rest to irrigate crops so they could charge outrageous prices for fresh food.

  When the first outbreak occurred, they knew trouble would follow. To try to stop others from finding out about this they sent a plane in to bomb the area. Over the next several months they destroyed over two dozen villages and cities. When they received an SOS, they sent their fastest to answer it, The Peacemaker. They could not risk another country’s representative firm getting there first.

  When The Peacemaker arrived, their rescue team boarded the other sub and were faced with what they called, “walking corpses,” or “abominations.” They meandered down the hallways, attacking the rescue teams and trying to bite them.

  The captain, Ulrich Johanson, aborted the mission, and got back who he could. One of the rescue team members had been bitten, but hid it from the others. Slowly but surely those on board went missing only to reappear infected. The report the scientists prepared to send when they surfaced sat in their digital cases until Maxine liberated them, and Ally found them after killing the Korean spy.

  A catastrophic event of some sort occurred, never written about. Ally could imagine it, too many infected t
o kill, control systems knocked off line, and the submarine became inoperable. Those left alive became sitting ducks for the infected roaming the aisle ways for their next meal. The smell of death, the condensation on the walls, the hiss of water rushing through pipes came back to Ally in a flash.

  Those things had done the same on the Betty Loo, they were able to work in unison, as a team. They planned and anticipated what others might do. She saw them in action, and could only imagine what a hundred of them would be able to do. The rescue sub never had a chance, then again neither did her team.

  Not only did they have the infected to deal with, but someone planted a bomb on board their sub. She knew why, now.

  At first they thought the explosive was a way to control them, make sure they held up their end of the bargain. The reality was someone wanted her crew to destroy the other sub, and in return for their efforts they would also be destroyed because they knew the secret about the water. Everyone died, Marcus died, because of the damn water.

  An angry ball formed in her stomach when she thought of who was behind it all, the Russians and Koreans. Ally would take them down no matter what, and she would expose what they had done to the world before it was too late.

  The chip in her possession was the key, the Russians and the Koreans wanted it. She needed to keep it safe, put it somewhere no one else would ever find it.

  First she needed to wake up.

  Chapter Two—

  Charles Myers, Charlie to his friends, eyed the display panel. The data transfer from Henry Williams completed a moment later. Charlie read over the information and sent back a response saying the packages would be taken care of.

  Flipping shut the device he turned to look at the wall beside his desk. Relics of a time gone by adorned every available surface. An eagle, a threadbare, colorless flag with stitched stripes, and pictures of monuments destroyed long ago when America fell.

  He kicked his desk. People were idiots. Most of the monuments were destroyed by his ancestors in forms of protest. An attempt to get back at a government they felt was ignoring them, taxing them to excess. No war came without a cost and when the fuel and oil shortages started, no one was safe. After trillions of dollars was spent, millions of lives lost, the only thing anyone had to show for it was a few radioactive craters, along with a new world order. Now, decades later, people only had old pictures of what this great country once stood for but didn’t care.

  Charlie’s parents believed a better America was possible, raised him to do whatever he could to help others. They preached about doing the right thing and turning the other cheek when others needed help or looked down on them. They died when he was fifteen in a fire caused by faulty wiring. He ran away from what used to be his home and found the electrician responsible. He beat him within an inch of his life. He would have killed him if it hadn’t been for a large man who pulled him off the guy and tossed him in the back of a truck. Two days later he met a man named Mark Richards, who had his own army. Charlie signed up then and there.

  For over ten years he listened to the man talk about creating a better America, a stronger America. All the things Charlie wanted, the problem was his methodology. Small raids, bombings, and kidnappings for ransom were not things Charlie felt would lead to significant change.

  When the group was given the order to assassinate people, he left, there had to be something else out there. Some more in line with his needs and wants. He searched for years and came up with nothing. Instead of giving up, Charlie decided he would be the change.

  He contacted some of his friends and convinced them to leave Mark’s militia and team up with Charlie. Five years later, he could count five hundred well trained morally grounded people as his own little army.

  If what he heard about Russia was true, on top of the outbreaks his people were trying to help deal with, he was going to need every one of them. He sent out a message to Trevor Jones, his right hand man, and told him about the packages in Russia.

  Charlie knew Trevor would have all the papers and information needed within a couple of hours. Charlie would secure the plane and weapons they might need.

  An explosion outside caught his attention, he ran to the window and saw another group of zombies. Seemed like every time you killed one, a dozen rose to take its place. Grabbing a Glock he raced out of his apartment and headed for the street.

  As strangers ran past him covered in blood and screaming for help as they pushed, shoved, and trampled anyone in their way, Charlie stood his ground, alone, ready to do what needed to be done to make America better. He raised his weapon and fired, the first shot causing the head of a zombie to explode as if hit by a hammer.

  Another bullet—this time the zombie’s skull caved in on itself while the body crumpled to the ground. Charlie tapped his implant and called for backup, for anyone currently listening to help him. Several recruits lived in this part of the city, Charlie arranged it. The area was one of the poorest in the state, forgotten about long ago. Above him the rusty rails of the El creaked in the wind. He fired several more rounds taking down one of the undead bastards each time, but the hored in front of him was growing and he was running out of bullets.

  Charlie backed up taking cover behind a rusted out dumpster. All around him signs of a dying city, both literally and figuratively. Chicago, once a thriving Mecca of businesses and tourism turned into a cesspool as people went bankrupt, and Lake Michigan became a toxic dumping ground. The El stopped working about forty years ago, and as a result gangs and homeless people moved into the now rusted out husks of metal.

  Charlie heard the gun click and knew the time for hand to hand fighting had arrived. He pulled out a machete from a sheath on his leg and moved to the side, hacking at the mob reaching for him with desperate need.

  A woman’s face appeared, he knew her, or at least used to. She sold, or tried to sell drawings down by the homeless shelter. Her expression contorted as she opened her mouth to try to bite him. He took in her appearance, left eye gone, in its place insect larvae. Left arm gnawed off at the elbow, and her chest cavity was one big sucking chest wound. Charlie raised the machete and made a swift right to left motion, her head slid off her neck slowly, rotten tendons and sinew exposed.

  Two men popped up in her place, Charlie kicked out the knee of one and smiled with grim satisfaction when the leg snapped and went backward at the joint. He slashed across the other man’s chest, and then pushed him away. Raising his machete he hacked off the head of the first man then turned to the other who struggled to stand back up.

  An arm grabbed him and he yanked it away before a small child could take a bite out of his forearm. He stomped the head of the man rolling on the ground until it was nothing but a brown pulpy mess.

  The entire time he kept his eye on the kid, a little girl he saw run around the streets every Sunday. She lunged at him again, going for his thigh. He sliced her in half, trying to tell himself it was the right thing to do, she was dead after all.

  Charlie moved himself so there was more room to fight, and tried to disable as many as he could, the others could come in and take care of destroying heads later. Right now, his main goal was to get as many down as possible.

  Gunshots from behind let him know he could back out of the fray and get more ammunition as his team helped him take care of this mess. He sighed, there were at least fifty of them, and more coming. If they didn’t find out the cause of this outbreak and stop it, the whole world would die.

  France—

  Guy LaFleur and his wife Marianne walked down a small alleyway. They’d tried traveling during the day and taking cover at night. With her condition worsening they were now forced to move whenever possible.

  A scream echoed off the ancient chipped stone walls of Paris’s historic district. Rust stains marked the path of rain from the time when fresh water fell from the sky, and a dumpster lay in bits and pieces collapsing under the weight of years worth of trash accumulation.

  Guy stopped and covered her mo
uth with his in an attempt to silence her without drawing attention. Her eyes were panicked and he looked down, her water broke. Dread flooded through him and made his blood run cold, the smell would attract those creatures.

  Screaming for help would do them no good, people didn’t put their necks out for anyone. More and more sightings of the things were being reported, which kept people inside with doors locked and pleas for help ignored.

  He attempted to drag her along, but she grabbed his arm.

  “I can’t, it hurts too bad.”

  “You have to. If we stay here we’re going to die.”

  Guy tried again, but his wife fell to the ground, grabbing her mid-section. Something moved behind him, but when he turned to look all he saw was a rat scurry along the wall. They didn’t have a choice, the baby needed to come out.

  “Okay, remember what Jaime said, breathe. Try and relax.”

  “You try and relax you idiot. How the hell am I supposed to breathe when the alley smells like hell, and rats are all over the place?” Marianne yelled.

  “Honey, you need to calm down if you want us to survive, if you want the baby to live.”

  Guy maneuvered himself so he was between his wife’s legs. He had no idea what he was looking for, they were supposed to meet a man who helped people in their situation in a week. If someone saw his wife and reported him, they would be killed.

  Only the wealthy were allowed to breed, a new law enacted ten years ago and enforced with lethal methods. Marianne didn’t care. She wanted a baby more than anything else in the world, and she felt it was a right. He went along because he loved her and could not deny her the one thing she wanted. He found someone who would deliver it and not report them. The cost wiped out their meagre account balance and put Guy into service for the next ten years, but the smile on her face as their baby grew made it worth it.