by Joshua Guess
A snap of the hand whipped the weighted end out into an arc, slicing the air with an audible whoosh. She moved at an angle away from the small swarm, forcing them to turn. Her cable wrapped around the neck of a zombie on the outer left part of the group closest to her, and Emily pulled hard.
The dead man toppled to the ground, flailing limbs taking two more with it. The smart move for most people would be to run away or at least keep a safe distance. Emily was not most people.
She never stopped moving, dashing toward the falling enemies and pushing off the back of the one she’d pulled to the ground. Her knee came up and took one of the standing zombies in the jaw, shattering it. The strike turned her in the air and Emily let it, torquing her body through the motion and whipping her armored fist sideways into the face of another zombie.
She came down with weapons in hands, having dropped the handle of her cable. Simple screwdrivers, ends sharpened to just the right angle to pierce bone, gleamed in the failing light. Taking out the zombies she’d slowed and injured was only the first step. She moved against the swarm as a whole, a buzzing insect bent on attacking at the edges with metal stingers. Emily danced around them, between them, never afraid to get in close if it helped her get the next kill.
All the while, her people kept right on working. They were a meat grinder churning out product at a more than respectable pace.
Emily was just cranking the handle.
Mason
Mason understood that Bobby was given to him as a guide in a vain attempt to throw him off balance. A sympathetic figure that was also gay? It was sloppy work and bad psychology from people with clearly only a surface understanding of how human beings functioned. They had enough information on Mason to know his sexual orientation, but not enough of a grasp of his record to get that he would put mission over everything.
The fact that he felt genuine sympathy for Bobby, liked him as a person, and even found him reasonably attractive, wouldn’t stop Mason from putting a knife through the other man’s heart if the mission called for it. He would feel bad and it would probably haunt him, but he’d do it all the same.
“Where can I find a bathroom?” Mason asked as their jeep crept to a halt. This part of the tour was a bit farther from Rebound than previous stops. The cluster of buildings in front of them was a mix of old and new, surrounded by flat cropland. Signs of new construction gave the place a fresh, hopeful air, bolstered by the people working the fields in the distance and those walking around the small community.
Bobby pointed toward a distant building. “There’s a public one over there. Probably not much to look at, but these farmers usually have their own private ones so your choices are limited.”
“Thanks,” Mason said. “You gonna follow me around to make sure I don’t go crazy and kill someone?”
Bobby chuckled. “Nah. My job isn’t to guard you. Kinda think if you wanted to hurt anyone, you would have already.”
Mason ambled along the dusty street not quite carelessly—impossible if you wanted to survive—but certainly relaxed. Along one side of a building was a large chalkboard, clearly taken from a school. On it, instructions for the day were scrawled in block letters, along with doodles and scribbles. It was a good way to keep the populace informed that didn’t require a taskmaster to ride anyone’s ass. From what he understood, most of New America used the system. It was a bit like an analogue version of Twitter.
It was a comparison, he realized, that the children of the world would never be able to understand. The ubiquitous technology of the bygone America was only a touchstone for those who could remember it.
“I’m a fucking dinosaur,” he muttered as he passed the chalkboard.
He didn’t let his gaze linger on it as he went by. The daily instructions and messages elicited no more than a few seconds of casual reading from Mason, the same any other passerby would have given it. The scribbles on the bottom looked like nothing more than the bored sketches anyone would expect to see. But for him, they were a message.
Mason made his way to the bathroom, which was one of the new structures. It lacked the professional finish of pre-Fall buildings, but its utilitarian design was perfect for now. Stout cinder-block walls with high, small windows, an aluminum roof stacked with solar panels and water heating system, and doors of thick steel. Mason liked it.
Inside he found a pair of showers and a row of stalls. No one else was present, but he still kept himself from looking too hard.
There: on one of the stall doors, the faintest dusting of white chalk against the spray-painted black. He locked himself in the stall and flipped the lid of the toilet.
Taped to the inside was a small plastic pouch with a piece of paper inside. Mason removed it quickly and quietly, then slid it into his boot. Then, just in case anyone was listening, he used the bathroom.
This was the fifth collection he’d made at a dead drop, and even he was amazed that the whole thing had worked out. The effort needed to train the dozens of people sent to New America in basic field craft was immense, but this made it worth it. In the movies, spies always had some critical piece of information, but that was usually bullshit. For every set of plans showing a crucial weakness in a Death Star, there were ten thousand pieces of everyday intelligence that painted a broad picture of weaknesses and patterns to exploit.
One of the first things he’d learned about the people running this little empire from the safety of their Rebound bunker was that they loved to communicate. Regular news updates over their dedicated radio network wasn’t just a good way to inform the populace about important facts, but a powerful psychological tool. It let the people know that the men and women governing them were always working, always there to adapt to changing needs. Presidential addresses once did the same job.
But it was also a weakness. Mason didn’t need to alert his sleepers that he was in town. The enemy did that for him.
“You look relieved,” Bobby said when Mason met back up with him, a wry smile on his face.
Mason shrugged. “A hydrated body is a healthy body. I drink too much water, especially since I got here. All the creature comforts are starting to spoil me.”
Bobby gave him a curious look. “Creature comforts?”
“Running water,” Mason said. “Heat that doesn’t involve a lot of firewood. That kind of thing. Having a nuclear reactor on hand solves a lot of problems.”
“That it does,” Bobby agreed. “I spent the first couple years out here freezing my ass off and trying not to get killed. It’s a nice change.”
And that, Mason thought, was the crux of the problem. Fomenting an insurrection only worked when the people were against you to some degree or another. As many pieces of information about the daily workings of New America as he was getting from the dead drops, such an obvious weakness was not among them.
They camped out. It was nice.
Not that sleeping outdoors was unheard of. Mason had done it the whole trip here and more times than he could count in a career spanning a couple decades. The Fall had given him plenty of opportunities to keep those skills sharp.
“You can tell me to fuck off,” Bobby said, the crackling fire between them. “But I was wondering about your scars.”
Mason didn’t look up from the stick he was sharpening. He had produced a treat from his pack, something made back home that he was sure Bobby hadn’t had in a while: marshmallows. “It’s fine. You want to know how I got them, right?”
But Bobby surprised him. “Actually, I was wondering how you survived them. You look like you got into a fight with a wood chipper and lost.” He winced at his own words. “Fuck, man. Sorry. They don’t make you look bad or anything. They’re just a lot, you know?”
Mason smiled. “It doesn’t bother me. I mean, yeah, I almost died and it left me looking completely different than I did before, but I don’t have emotional trauma from it. Some people might, and I get that. But I saw too many people get mangled by war long before the world went down the c
rapper to be bothered by it much when it happened to me.”
He listened to the pops and snaps from the fire for a little while, taking in the sounds of night around their little camp. It was part enjoyment and part survival mechanism, and the two were mixed thoroughly together. Mason thought it might be part and parcel to how people adapted to cope with the immense stress; being forced to keep your ears open and attentive also made you really become aware of the world around you. The songs of insects, the low hoots of owls, the occasional snort of a deer. Listening made it impossible to forget that no matter how fragile human life might be, the world itself still thrived.
Eventually, he did answer. “I don’t know. We have theories, but so far no one else has survived the things I have without reanimating. I wasn’t just hurt, either. I took this wound to my side that was black with infection, and I thought I was going to die. So I sacrificed myself to give my friends time to get away and got all this in the process.” He gestured toward his body.
“Zombies did that to you,” Bobby said, eyeing Mason’s scars. More of them were visible now, even in the imperfect firelight, as he’d stripped off his layers and wore only an undershirt. “How the fuck did you not bleed out?"
“I don’t know,” Mason said honestly. “I got medical care not long after, but even then I probably should have died. Best guess is that Chimera kept me going.”
Bobby’s eyebrows knitted together. “What, the plague? How would that help you?”
Mason tilted his head. “You know, it changes your physiology, does a lot to boost your immune system, and even carries oxygen.”
“How do you know that, though?” Bobby asked.
Mason leaned forward, powerfully curious. Everything in him said that this wasn’t an act. Bobby really had no idea, was almost completely ignorant of the science behind the walking dead. “I think the better question is how do you not know it? Don’t you read the website?”
Bobby burst into laughter. “Well, no. I don’t read any websites. There haven’t even been phones for years, much less any internet.”
Mason had to actively control his reaction. Oh, he knew the average person here had no access to the rudimentary, satellite-driven internet run by the western communities out in California. But Bobby was fairly high ranked among the non-Rebound folks. Mason would have bet every weapon in his collection the guy would at least know it existed.
“Well,” Mason said slowly. “You’re kinda wrong about that. It’s slow and doesn’t have much bandwidth, but there’s definitely a basic internet. It uses cell towers and satellites to interact with a couple servers running out west. It’s where the repository is kept.” Seeing another blank look on Bobby’s face, Mason explained. “It’s a text website that carries a bunch of stuff, including a blog a friend of mine used to write. But the main reason for it is the collection of information about the plague. What it does, how it works. It’s open for anyone to access. The whole point of it is to spread the word so people can stay informed.”
Bobby’s face went red enough that Mason could see it even in the firelight. “That’s not funny, man. At all.”
Mason felt his muscles twitch at the harsh tone. “That’s good, because I didn’t tell a fucking joke. Want to explain what has your panties in a twist all of a sudden?”
“Your bullshit, that’s what,” Bobby said heatedly. “Like you don’t know my people want your geneticist buddy because he’s been keeping all his research to himself. Telling me there’s some open source encyclopedia about it is just insulting.”
Mason wasn’t actually angry. It took a lot to reach that point, and as a rule of thumb when it happened, people were already dead or dying. He could tell Bobby was close to a point where bad decisions would get easier. So in a moment of inspiration, he decided to take a risk.
“You don’t believe me, and that’s fine,” Mason said. “Maybe you’re okay with your people sending out men to kidnap and experiment on innocent people because we’re supposedly keeping you in the dark.” The words were carefully chosen to elicit a response or highlight the lack of one, and Bobby did not disappoint. He looked shocked, as if it were the first he heard about kidnappings.
“So, fine, Bobby. You don’t believe? Cool. Let’s pack up. We’ll drive somewhere relatively close. If you can get us through the border without questions, I’ll show you proof.”
It would be risky. No. That was an enormous understatement. If this didn’t work out, Mason would have to either kill Bobby or abandon the entire plan. He felt the risk was worth it. He sensed the bare edges of a crack he might be able to exploit. No one liked to live in ignorance, especially when it was forced upon them.
Bobby shook his head. “Can’t do that. We’re supposed to stay inside the border. You’re trying to trick me.”
In response, Mason reached into his pack and pulled out a small rectangle. He tossed it to Bobby, who caught its glittering form as it arced over the fire. “A phone? What’s this supposed to prove? No signals anymore.”
“No signals here,” Mason said. “If there weren’t any at all, as your people at Rebound have told you, why would I carry that and the solar cells I need to charge it? It’s a military touchscreen phone, Bobby. Why would I use that in place of a more reliable flip phone?”
Bobby stared at the screen, swiping it open. “To read text.” His words were soft.
“To read text,” Mason said, enunciating each word. “So. Want to find out who’s lying to you and who’s telling the truth?”
Turned out Bobby wanted exactly that.
Kell
When the door burst open, it moved about twelve inches. This was just far enough for one zombie to squeeze through and find itself trapped in a small triangle of floor space. The desk came up to its waist, and its mass stretched across the space between the door frame and the adjacent wall turned it into an excellent barrier.
Kell’s long reach came in handy. He brought the sword down on the zombie’s head.
It broke.
“Motherfucker,” he grumbled. “Of course.”
His hand went to his side out of habit, but his knife wasn’t there. None of his weapons were. Frustrated, he snatched the zombie’s wrist and yanked it across the desk, then jammed the truncated blade through its eye socket. It convulsed before falling still, and he pulled the body over to his side of the room. Couldn’t give the incoming dead anything to use as a step stool.
The next zombie was too big to easily fit through the narrow gap, so Kell took a few seconds to haul the dead zombie up and push it out the window. It cleaned off much of the glass still sitting on the slope and landed with a meaty thud on the concrete below.
He looked around for anything other than the broken sword that might serve as a weapon and came up empty. This was the sort of office meant to intimidate or impress. At least in a working office like the ones outside he’d have had a letter opener to stab with or a hole punch to bash into skulls.
With a sigh, Kell tightened his grip on the hilt of his shitty weapon and went back to work.
Zombie number two finally squeezed through the gap and lunged for him. It didn’t take note of the desk, however, and ended up flopping over onto its belly in the attempt. Kell jammed the jagged blade into its neck, working down between the vertebrae. The dead man stiffened, then went limp. This one was too big for Kell to move with any speed, so he just pulled the body across as he had done before and left if crumpled on the carpet.
The third zombie broke the door, a crack snapping into existence all along the edge attached to the frame. Kell leaped backward awkwardly as the wood tumbled free under the weight of bodies pressing against it.
They couldn’t swarm over him thanks to the desk, but it only bought him a handful of seconds. He glanced around again like a midnight snacker looking in the fridge for the tenth time and expecting to see something new, but no weapons or tools suddenly appeared.
“Son of a bitch,” he swore, limping toward the window.
; He dropped the sword hilt. Both his hands would be occupied. With a grunt of effort, Kell hauled himself through the broken window and onto the roof outside it. He was careful to brace with his good leg, then pulled himself across the ridges of the aluminum panels that made up the surface, which hurt like several kinds of hell, to escape any grasping hands that might reach through. The overhang only covered the back of the building that he could see, and it wasn’t large. Five feet from building to empty air.
He moved down a good five feet from the window. It didn’t seem like much to the lurking fear at the base of his skull, but to reach him any zombie would have to crawl out of the window and along the overhang. Kell didn’t have an excess of confidence in his balance and coordination, but he didn’t doubt he was magnitudes more suited for navigating the steep roof than any dead man.
This prophecy came true in short order when a zombie climbing through the window managed to pull itself over the sill and promptly lose its struggle with gravity and momentum. The dead woman toppled over herself and hung for a fraction of a second like an animated coyote, though Kell knew that was just his brain breaking down the visual.
He was still looking that direction, and taken off guard as a result, a few seconds later. A New Breed zombie clambered through the window and had no trouble gripping the ridges to move on Kell. He almost lost his balance when the thing rushed at him from the corner of his eye, but threw himself flat on his back just to be safe.
The advantage was his, however slight. The New Breed had to let go with its claws to grab onto Kell. Smart as it was, the thing didn’t think through the job. Instead of raking at his leg with a single taloned hand while retaining his grip on the roof with the other, it let go with both and lunged.