From Oblivion's Ashes

by Nyman, Michael E. A.

  He shrugged.

  “Now, given such a world, our amoeba-like life-form would continue to push the boundaries of all it could be, without multi-cellular competitors evolving to take a bite out of the global, nutrient pool. This is not to say that it wouldn’t have competitors. Other single-celled organisms would always be rising up to challenge it. Life is a jungle, and the microscopic world is no different. But on that battlefield, as a template, the amoeba archetype reigns supreme.

  “Now. Consider our own two billion year old evolutionary flow chart, and then transpose that development into our space-amoeba. Only don’t stop at two billion. Gas giants form much earlier than earth-like planets, so this strain of life could have had far more time to evolve than we ever got. Give them a more advanced form of slime mold collectivism than our amoebas, and you have the collective intelligence displayed by our undead. Maybe there’s a highly sensitive organelle that facilitates their connectivity.”

  He looked around at the disbelieving faces.

  “I’ll admit,” he said, “I’m really stretching the hypothesis, but it answers almost every impossible question these... these undead humans represent. Microbial life is the most energy efficient life form on the planet - especially those that evolve chloroplasts - which would explain their seemingly inexhaustible energy reserves. Shape change, adaptability, collective intelligence… it’s all there. Even the heavy gravity environment helps explain the resilience of their pseudopodia with respect to their incredible strength and vigor. For all intents and purposes, they’re shape-changing, slime molds from the planet Krypton. And as exhibit A on the ‘is this really possible?’ agenda, I give you a denizen of our own world, the humble amoeba, slowly working its way up to owning these very same talents.

  “But then, let us go further down our metaphorical rabbit hole. On this hypothetical world, there would be billions... trillions...quadrillions... of these little buggers, swirling around in the chemical mist. Collective consciousness would be a fleeting thing, but dear God...! What an intellect! The potential thinking power of some of the constructs would make any given Swarm pale by comparison. Just imagine the concepts they’d have grasped, the levels of higher thought they would have reached. Mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, astronomy... There would have been collectives, even temporary ones, for whom our most difficult subjects would have seemed about as complicated as Sesame Street. And they could have worked these things out millions of years ago.”

  He puffed his cigarette absently.

  “Frankly,” he said, looking pensive, “I’m surprised they’re as dumb as they are. You would have expected more from an organism capable of space travel.”

  There was a general murmur in response to this comment.

  “Space amoebas,” Peter Hanson scoffed. “You brought us here to tell us that our world has fallen to a strain of space amoebas that have developed interstellar travel.”

  “Of course,” Scratchard snapped. “How else do you think they got here? Please try to keep up, Hanson. Even if we hadn’t watched them hatch out of the center of a ten thousand year old meteorite, I repeat… There is no way this organism evolved here on Earth.”

  “This is absurd,” Hanson proclaimed.

  “This is why I said we should have kept this theory to ourselves,” Eva sighed.

  “Is that more or less stupid than the basic idea of a zombie apocalypse, sir?” Professor Samuels inquired of Peter Hanson. “While it’s true that Eva and myself are... hesitant to jump on the bandwagon, Professor Scratchard’s theories do possess the elegance of explaining much of what we don’t understand. There are, of course, some gaps, but if the shoe fits.”

  “It’s also noteworthy to remember,” Eva added dryly, “that as much of an ass as Professor Scratchard is, he is still one of the great scientists of our era. It’s best, therefore, not to dismiss his ideas out of hand.”

  “Hrrmm,” Samuels agreed, though not looking too happy about it.

  “Of course, space travel would have a very different meaning to them than it would to us,” Scratchard continued, ignoring everyone and staring at the screen. “They would be looking for planets like their own, where the more volatile burn of atmospheric entry would release them into the atmosphere on arrival. Protected inside the accretion of their own asteroid, a dormant strain could travel for thousands of years without much trouble, especially with the right minerals in the stone. The great distances. The generally, lifeless desert of endless space.”

  “But that still doesn’t explain why it’s doing what it’s doing,” Kumar interrupted, clearly bothered. “What possible reason could it have for hunting down all of humanity, chopping us up into single-cell organisms, and then keeping those individual cells on ice. It’s... there’s no sense to it at all!”

  Eva and Bartholomew didn’t have an answer.

  Scratchard shrugged.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he admitted. “The truth is that most of what I’ve told you is still theoretical. It is factual that the organism bears some similarities to the common amoeba, that its base pairs run into the trillions, and that it preserves individual human cells in stasis, reasons unknown. Its ability to generate bio-energy and propagate itself using water, sunlight, and human tissue is likewise observable under the microscope. The rest is conjecture, but bound by scientific projections that, however incredible the conclusion, seem indisputable. We are dealing with an alien organism.”

  He shook his head and looked thoughtful.

  “Hypothetically speaking,” he said, “If my model is correct, then it raises some interesting implications regarding intelligence. Sentience is a transient condition for this organism, and multi-cellular cooperation, a temporary state, but which is capable of grasping concepts that we can’t even imagine. On the other hand, their understanding of how permanent collectives might see the world would be relatively limited. For example, imagine trying to explain the terror of drowning to an intelligent fish. It might grasp the general idea eventually, but it could not possibly conceive the concept by itself.”

  He chuckled, then paused with a look of contemplation.

  “I’m reminded of an Star Trek episode. Old Trek. Back when it was good, before political correctness ruined the honesty of its vulgar, shameless, human-centric, self-promotion.”

  “Which episode?” Kumar asked.

  “I don’t remember the title,” Scratchard said, “but it’s one of my favorites. The boys touch down on this planet populated by white, blonde-haired, blue-eyed surfer types dressed in skimpy underwear, and calling themselves the ‘Feeder’s of Vaal’-”

  “The Apple,” Brian said confidently.

  “Episode thirty-four,” Kumar agreed.

  “Whatever,” Scratchard said, waving this off. “The point is that Kirk, God bless him, is insulted that humans should devote their sexless lives to serving what is, essentially, just a machine. So he kills their god, setting them free to go forth and screw their brains out in complete freedom as nature intended.”

  “It’s a metaphor for the loss of innocence,” Brian explained.

  “Yeah,” Kumar agreed. “And it’s filled with all kinds of Biblical references-”

  “It doesn’t matter what it’s filled with,” Scratchard said, cutting them off. “The point is the human-centric viewpoint. If the zombie organism comes from a world where there are no multi-cellular organisms, what do you suppose its reaction might be when it arrives on a planet where they exist?”

  The distended jaws began to close down on Angie.

  And then, a jarring impact struck them both. Angie was flung away, stars in her eyes, as something knocked her from the zombie’s grasp with the power of a sideswiping truck.

  She landed in the shattered remains of a ruined garden shed, barely missing the upturned blade of a rusty pair of hedge sheers.

  Rolling up into a ball with a spasm of pain, Angie felt the trickle of blood along her arm. In spite of the sudden wave of agony and nau
sea, her first thought was on how the smell of blood would bring the whole zombie world down on her.

  Stupid. She was still likely to die. Whoever had tackled the zombie, whoever had risked their life for hers, they would die first. But afterwards…

  Her eyes widened. Whoever had helped her, they had to have known it was hopeless. That meant that it was either Marshal or Luca who was trying to save her. They were only people she knew who might be willing to die just to give her a chance to live. She had to make the most of that chance, or their death would mean nothing.

  She flipped over onto all fours, getting her hands and knees under her and pushing aside the long grass and broken boards that obscured her view of possible escape routes.

  But there was no escape. She had landed right in the middle of the action. Before her, the zombie woman came to her feet, unfazed by the brutal violence of Angie’s saviour. With jaws still distended, wood and debris crunching beneath her feet, the creature stood, bunching itself to spring in Angie’s direction.

  A low growl caused Angie to look over her shoulder.

  Terror and shock struck her both at once.

  It was Frank Sabbatini. He stood behind her, swaying on his undead limbs, his feral attention fixed on the woman zombie that had attacked Angie.

  And then, in a flashing blur of movement, before the woman-zombie could spring, Frank leapt over Angie’s squeaking body, seized his opponent in a two-fisted grip, and slammed her to the ground like a rag doll. She hit with a crunching ‘Boom’, splintering wood and cracking concrete from the force.

  Without waiting, Frank had the other zombie up again, swinging her body around his head like a bag of sand and throwing her at the wall of a nearby house, smashing it to ruin with an explosion of bricks and mortar.

  Ignoring Angie, he dove towards the pile of rubble in full Attack Mode.

  The rubble pile exploded, driving Frank back and raining debris down on Angie. The woman zombie emerged, intercepting Frank’s advance with a sudden, violent charge of her own that sent the two titans barrelling into another house. They locked together in close combat as the structure collapsed around them.

  Angie scrambled to get away, the panic pouring waves of adrenalin into her thrashing movement. Her senses reeled as the collapsed house shuddered and heaved, proving that the battle was far from over. Like a cat clambering over a field of marbles, she fought her way free of the debris and towards the autumn-coloured banks of the forested Don Valley.

  A wall flew aside in a shower of bricks, and the woman zombie staggered to her feet, still intact and functional. She looked more than capable of running down a thirteen year old girl bereft of her camouflage and plain as day. But she took no notice of Angie’s flight.

  Instead, to Angie’s horror, the zombie woman leaned her head back, and sounded out a call to Swarm in a low, gurgling howl.

  She had only just a couple of seconds to the summons when another explosion of rubble announced Frank’s return. Like a striking serpent, his hand came up out of the debris first, closing like a vice on his adversary’s throat, silencing the call to Swarm.

  SLAM!

  One-handed, Frank lifted the zombie-woman up off the ground and back down again on the rubble pile, flat on her back. The creature struggled, but Frank was suddenly astride her, holding her by the throat with one hand and driving the other repeatedly into her head. Tissue and ichor dripped from his fist, but he didn’t stop. Again and again, he drove his fist into her face, mangling it beyond all recognition.

  Angie ran. Blind, mindless panic fuelled her, driven by the crashing sounds of battle still raging behind her. She ran in a way she hadn’t since before the outbreak, through the tangled undergrowth, getting tangles in her clothes, skidding and slipping down the hill in her desperation to escape.

  One minute, two minutes... more? Time seemed unreal as she ran. New crashes and explosions of power echoed through the trees behind her, indicating that despite the savage beating she’d already endured, the woman zombie was still fighting back.

  Suddenly, there were hands on her!

  Grabbed in an all-encompassing embrace from behind, with one arm covering her mouth, she was swept off her feet and pulled into the shadow of a tree. In a surprising burst of adrenalin-fuelled strength, she wrenched an arm free, reaching into her pocket for her knife.

  Whoever it was that had grabbed her, they were no zombie. Whoever it was, they could bleed. She flipped the knife around and stabbed it into the forearm across her chest. She heard a shout of pain, but the arm remained tight around her. In a fury, she pulled the knife free in a spray of blood and raised her arm to strike again.

  “Jesus Christ, Ang,” growled a familiar voice as the hand covering her mouth released her to grab her knife hand by the wrist. “I can’t decide if I’m fucking proud of you or not, but you aren’t jabbing that pig sticker into me twice. Ease off, all right?”

  Angie let the knife slip from her fingers and fall to the ground. With a final display of strength, she twisted free of the grip and flung herself into Luca’s arms and cried into the warmth of his chest.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Day 53: The Great Boot

  Scratchard closed up his presentation, tapping a few final commands onto his keyboard. His audience was breaking up under its own recognizance, either turning off digital feeds or simply wandering off screen. For the time being, Valerie’s plan had worked. Scratchard had given everyone a lot to think about, and even Peter Hanson had ceased his grandstanding, his expression troubled as his monitor went dark.

  “Kumar!” Scratchard shouted out as he worked. “See if you can’t get my personal laptop access to the apartment’s security network. I’m setting up my lab in the back corner, and I can learn a lot by observing undead and how they react to – Oh! Er… hello. Can I help you?”

  “If you’re not too busy,” the old man answered with a friendly smile. “I still have a few questions about your findings.”

  Scratchard looked him up and down, and saw a man a little older than him, or maybe several years older. He was dressed in a rumpled-looking, brown button-up shirt, faded blue jeans, and a broad sun hat, even though they were indoors. His eyes were as blue and friendly as Caribbean beach water, with skin that was weathered, tanned, that could have been of almost any ethnic background.

  Something in the man’s gaze set off alarm bells in Scratchard’s back brain.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “God,” the man answered, extending a hand.

  “Ah, yes,” Scratchard said, ignoring the hand and lighting a cigarette. “I’ve heard of you. Buckets of crazy. Do you know? I think we’d both be much happier if you simply turned yourself around and went away.”

  God frowned. “Really? Why is that?”

  Scratchard exhaled a huge gust of smoke into God’s face.

  “Oh.” God deflated, looking disappointed. “An atheist.”

  “What? No!” Scratchard jerked backwards, shaking his head. “I mean... yes. Obviously. But the fact that I’m an atheist has nothing at all to do with it. I just don’t have time for lunatics or idiots. Now, please-”

  “It’s just that I find atheists to be so tiresome,” God complained. “Atheists and Buddhists. They’re very similar creatures, you know.”

  Scratchard looked ready to respond, but the words stuck in his throat. His eyes closed with a wince of pain, and he rubbed his forehead with the thumb of the hand holding his smoke.

  “All right,” he said at last, with the look of a man already regretting the impulse to ask. “I’m… I’ll… Ugh. I’m going to hate myself for this later, I can feel it. How are atheists and Buddhists alike?”

  “They both cheat,” God answered, “except Buddhists are like kids who’ve snuck into the teacher’s desk at school, read the book of answers, and think that makes them expert students. Atheists are the exact opposite. They’re all A+ students, focused and evolved, but they’re so walled off that they can’t imagine reality existing beyon
d the school grounds. They’re both like teenagers, really… brilliant and stupid at the same time.”

  “So we’re all better off worshipping a cosmic Daddy figure in his off-white, spectral cloud city?” Scratchard demanded, stabbing his cigarette at God accusatively.

  “Oh, heavens no,” God sighed. “Worship is for children. It’s a shame, really. They’re so cute and endearing, but they all eventually have to grow up. You know? When they’re young, it’s all, “My daddy is the strongest man in the world. My mommy is smarter than anyone.” And they’re always asking for stuff, because they think there isn’t a problem in the world you can’t solve, which may be true, but Mommy and Daddy can’t be at school. And what would be the point if they could?”

  God shook his head with a sigh.

  “There’s nothing you can do about it either. Teenagers may be a pain in the ass, but they’re still a necessary phase in growing up. It’s just a shame that they have this obnoxious period where they think they know everything.”

  Scratchard stared at him for a few seconds, frowning.

  “So,” he said, speculatively, “you’re saying that God supports atheism?”

  God gave him a withering look.

  “Well now, I’d have to be pretty stupid if I thought that, wouldn’t I?” he said. “Do I exist? Duh! Look, just because my bone-headed, teenage kids think I’m old and obsolete doesn’t mean I have to believe them. They’ll learn. One day, they’re going to face the real reality, and they’ll see what it’s like. By that time, I expect to be around to see grandchildren... and I will laugh my ass off!”

  “This is stupid,” Scratchard muttered. “I can’t believe that I am even having this conversation.”