But Rae couldn’t do anything. Any attempt to help Edward now would only result in her getting arrested or possibly even shot.
Gates put a hand on Rae’s shoulder, and Rae resisted the urge to take it off while breaking a few fingers. “You will receive a bonus shortly, and I’m certain I can get you a promotion with Merton. The condition, of course, is that you don’t talk about this to anyone. You forget that you were ever a part of his story. As far as any of these people watching here know, all they saw was a sick man trying to evade custody for some reason. They don’t need to know who he really was. Ever. And if they do and we find out it was your doing, not only will you not be receiving that bonus, you will lose your job and your apartment. We’ll even take away your stupid gun.” To emphasize the words, Gates put out a hand for the returned security woman to place the rifle in. Gates handed Rae the weapon. “I trust you’ll be on board with us about this?”
“Of course,” Rae said. She wasn’t sure how convincing that sounded, so she added, “As long as my bonus and promotion are good enough.”
Gates snorted and took her hand off Rae’s shoulder. That final mercenary line seemed to do the trick, and Gates eased. “Good. It will be. Good day then, Miss Neuman.”
Gates walked away, moving swiftly between all the security people, giving them orders, and going in the general direction of the Merton employees who were talking to Ringo. From what little she knew about him, Rae was certain he wouldn’t have an issue taking a bribe to stay silent. That was the smart thing to do now.
Rae heard a wheezing noise from behind her and turned to see an elderly gentleman walking up to her. He was tall with a scraggly beard but only a few patches of hair on his head. His glasses were thick and the glass was yellow with age. He was probably older than anyone Rae had ever seen before, old enough to remember a time before the Uprising. All the commotion had probably attracted him, and all he would want was to know that everything was still safe and fell in line with the status quo.
“Miss,” the old man said. “Miss, what was it? What happened here?”
Rae looked for Gates. She had apparently finished talking with Ringo and was getting into the car that had Edward in it. The windows were tinted so Rae couldn’t see him, but she knew he was in there.
“They found a zombie,” Rae said. “A zombie that can talk and think…and heal.”
The old man gasped, but Rae didn’t look to see his expression. Instead she slung Spanky over her shoulder and went for her bike, thinking of where the nearest news outlet would be for her to tell all this to. Rae didn’t give a crap whether or not she got her money, and she had hated her job enough that she had never really wanted to be promoted anyway. Her apartment was a shithole that she could easily replace. The government could take all those things from her if they wanted.
As for them trying to take Spanky, well, Rae was pretty certain that the old-style NRA had once had a saying for that.
Part Two:
California
Chapter Thirteen
Edward was surprised when he wasn’t put in handcuffs before being escorted to the car. The two men led him to a back seat before closing the door for him, then both got in the front. Neither of them talked, although the one on the passenger side kept glancing back at him like he expected Edward to try something stupid. Edward, however, didn’t think he would have the energy to try escaping right now even if he wanted to or thought he could actually make it past all the other security personnel crawling over the area. He was tired again, his body ached, and he still hadn’t had any chance to eat.
For a moment Edward thought the hunger in his gut was causing an olfactory hallucination, but when he took a deep breath he realized the car smelled like food. And not just the scent of the two men in front (he was too mentally worn out right now to be alarmed that he had just equated them with food) but something else, a scent from long ago, greasy and meaty. He looked up at the dashboard and saw a brown and blue bag sitting there. From the scent and the shape of the contents bulging at the bag’s side, Edward guessed it held a burger of some sort and fries. He’d never seen the logo on the bag before, curlicued letters spelling out the name Zappy’s, but that didn’t matter. It was food.
The man in the passenger seat saw where Edward’s gaze went, and he grabbed the bag to hand back to Edward. “Danielle got this for you. She said that if you really were a Z7 then you would need the protein.”
That made absolutely no sense to Edward, but he snatched the bag from the man’s hand and opened it, tearing the bag a little in the process. The french fries were on top, and he grabbed a handful and stuffed them into his mouth. They were great, despite being cold like they had sat in the car a little too long, but his stomach still lurched a little bit at the taste. He forced himself to chew and swallow, thinking it had been so long since he had eaten that his stomach just wasn’t used to having food in it again, but the more he ate the queasier he felt. As much as he was sure he needed the food, he didn’t want to eat any more. If he threw up, it might very well be the same black maggoty mess he’d had in him back in the Walmart, and he didn’t want to see any of that again.
The other door opened and the black woman who had talked him out of the truck—Danielle, he assumed from the man in front’s comment—got in beside him. She looked at the torn bag in his hands and smiled. “Does it help any?” she asked.
“No,” Edward said. “In fact I think I might throw up.”
Danielle nodded. “I thought that might be a possibility. Why don’t you try the hamburger? Don’t eat the bun or anything, though. Just take off the meat and try that.”
Edward stared at her for several seconds, then did what she said. He pulled the burger, a large and greasy third-pounder, out of its carton and took the meat from the bun. His stomach stopped rolling as the smell of beef hit his nostrils. He nibbled at it at first, allowing the juicy taste to spread over his tongue. It tasted amazing. In his memory it had only been perhaps a week since he had eaten a hamburger, but he had to remind himself that, in truth, it had been over fifty years. After fifty years any burger, even the cheapest fast food there was, would taste like the most delicious thing ever. It also stopped most of the rolling in his stomach. But not all. Edward took another, bigger bite and sighed as he chewed.
“Good?” Danielle asked.
“Yes,” Edward said. “But…”
“But what?”
Edward thought about it. It tasted good and familiar, but it still didn’t feel quite right. Something was missing. Nutrients, maybe, parts that had been cooked off. But that didn’t feel like a natural urge, and he didn’t want to admit it.
“Is it that it’s not raw?” Danielle asked.
Edward paused, then nodded. Danielle nodded back, then reached into her expensive looking jacket and pulled out a pen and a small notebook. She flipped it open and jotted a few words down.
“What are you doing?” Edward asked. “Taking notes on my eating habits?”
“That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Edward chewed the rest of the meat in silence. He was still hungry, perhaps even hungrier than he had been before, but he didn’t think he could finish the fries or the bun. The driver started the car and drove off, leaving the crowd of onlookers behind. Edward had thought for a moment that he had seen Rae somewhere among them, but he supposed she didn’t matter anymore. Her part in his story was probably over.
“Can you tell me who you are?” he asked.
“Danielle Gates, Chief of Special Projects for the Center for Reanimation Studies.”
“Is that what I am, then? A special project? Some experiment that escaped?”
She chuckled. “I think maybe you might have read too many books in your life, Mr. Schuett.”
“Hate books. They bore the hell out of me. So if I’m not an experiment, then what am I?”
“You are something we have expected could exist for a long time but have never actually seen.”
“I’
m sorry, but that kind of tells me jack crap.”
“My apologies, Mr. Schuett. I promise we will give you a more detailed idea of what we know when we get where we’re going. Until then, I’m more concerned about your safety and comfort.”
Edward snorted. “I’m not really sure what kind of comfort you think you can give me right now.”
“We’re going to do everything we can for you. You just need to trust us.”
Edward didn’t say anything back. After everything that had happened so far, his trust was something few people would be able to earn easily.
Chapter Fourteen
The car drove through the city and back out through a gate into the Empty Zone. While they went, Gates explained that she and several others in the CRS had flown in on the Center’s private jet as soon as they had heard that some random security guard had been asking questions about zombies that didn’t act like zombies. They had asked local contractors and people within Merton to bring him in to safety, although Gates had a scowl as she said they had obviously ignored the part about “safety.” Edward paid attention to all this but didn’t speak. He listened for anything she might say that would give him any more information, but she was keeping tight-lipped for now. The only information he’d learned had been before she got back in the car, when the man in the passenger seat had called him a Z7, but he had no clue what that was supposed to mean.
The airport was several miles outside of the new boundaries of Fond du Lac, built on the same location as the municipal airport Edward remembered from his own time. It was mostly the same, although there were significantly fewer personal aircraft and much tighter security surrounding it. Edward guessed the security was purely for the purpose of keeping out the few stray zombies, since he couldn’t imagine the place, small enough originally, to ever host commercial flights. That one airstrip had been enough for the jet, though.
The men at the gate let the car through, and the driver pulled right up near where the jet was parked. The stairs were already set up and ready, and a youngish man, maybe around Rae’s age, stood at the base. Edward waited for a moment as everyone else got out of the car, expecting someone to open his door for him and grab him to be detained somewhere. After several seconds of waiting, though, Gates looked back through her own still-open door at him.
“Well, are you coming?”
“I thought I didn’t have a choice.”
“Are you saying you want to stay now? Not get your answers?”
“No. I guess not.”
Edward got out, and while Gates went over to the driver and talked to him in a whisper for several seconds the man who had been at the base of the stairs walked over. He had a leather bag in his hand, and as he approached he opened it.
“Are you him, then?” the man asked.
“Um, I guess.”
“Mr. Schuett, this is Dr. Concordia,” Gates said. She walked over to join them as the driver got back in the car and drove off. “If you wouldn’t mind, he’d like to do a few tests before you get on the plane.”
“Okay, first, what kind of tests?” Edward asked. “And second, where exactly are we going?”
“We’re going someplace where we can hopefully answer a few questions—the main campus for the Center for Reanimation Studies located at Land’s End University in California. In your time I believe it was called Stanford.”
“California,” Edward said. Strangely, given the circumstances, he felt a growing excitement. He’d barely even left the state for most of his life. The only thing resembling a vacation he’d ever been on had been when he’d gone with Julia to visit his in-laws in the Upper Peninsula, but that had been far too nerve-racking to be enjoyable. Not that he thought this trip would actually be fun, but that small excitement remained.
Of course, that still left a problem. He wasn’t stupid. There was a good chance this was a one-way trip. Whether they decided to keep him somewhere for further study or at some point they decided he was too much of a problem and disposed of him, it wasn’t likely he would be returning to Wisconsin any time soon, if ever. That part wasn’t so hard to accept. After all, this place wasn’t his home anymore, not really. But there still might be things here he wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else.
“Wait, my family,” Edward said. “That woman Rae, she said she was going to look for any records of what happened to them.”
Gates paused and gave him a concerned look. “I do hope you realize how jumbled the records are from that time. There is very little likelihood that any such information exists.”
“Rae already filled me in on that. But please, if you want me to cooperate, can’t you please have someone look?”
Gates frowned but still took out her pad and pen to jot down a few notes. “It’s not impossible. But you do realize that if you want anything we find, we will need your full and unconditional cooperation on everything. Understood?”
“Understood completely,” Edward said. He hoped she didn’t hear the hesitation in his voice. He had the sneaking suspicion that he might learn to regret that agreement later.
“Okay then,” Gates said. “Dr. Concordia, whenever you’re ready.”
The doctor gestured over to the stairs. “Perhaps you would like to sit down, Mister…”
“Schuett,” Edward said. “Why would I need to sit down?”
“I’ve been asked to check all your vital signs and do a few tests,” Dr. Concordia said. “Although it might be helpful if you told me any symptoms you’ve been feeling?”
“Symptoms?” Edward asked. “Um…”
“Edward, Dr. Concordia was brought here on last minute notice,” Gates said. “He has been sworn to secrecy as to anything he finds with you, but I thought it might be…call it telling, if he came into this blind with no expectations about what he will find with you.”
“You mean,” Edward said, “you really can’t tell just by looking at me?”
“You’re pale and seem to have some sort of bad skin condition, but other than that I cannot gather anything just by looking at you,” the doctor said.
Edward looked at Gates. “But, I just looked in a mirror maybe half an hour ago…”
“Let the doctor do his job,” Gates said. “We’ll discuss the details later.”
Edward took a seat on one of the lower stairs, and Dr. Concordia opened his case. Mostly it contained standard doctor’s tools, although there were a few devices Edward didn’t recognize. The doctor took out an object slightly larger than his hand, a squat black cylinder on a square base. There were buttons and a digital readout on the base, but the cylinder was completely smooth except for a small black opening over the readout. The doctor kneeled next to Edward, put the device on the ground, and then pulled a syringe and rubber cord from the case.
“Hold out your arm, please,” the doctor requested. Edward did. It was a good thing Edward wore short sleeves, since otherwise Dr. Concordia would have needed to roll up the filthy and ragged cloth. The doctor wrinkled his nose in disgust as he wrapped the cord around Edward’s forearm and swabbed the crook of his elbow with alcohol, and Edward was reminded how terrible he probably smelled.
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I could get some new clothes anytime soon?” Edward asked Gates.
“That’s one of the things I asked the driver to get while we’re waiting here,” Gates said. “I’m sure those old things smell just as bad to you as they do to us.”
Actually, Edward thought there was something vaguely pleasant and reassuring about the way they smelled, but he was sure that wasn’t how he was supposed to answer. Instead he just stayed quiet.
The doctor used the syringe to fill a vial with Edward’s blood, then stuck it in the opening of the black device. Immediately it began to whir. “What is that thing, anyway?” Edward asked. The doctor gave him a confused look.
“Uh, what does it look like?”
“Don’t have a clue,” Edward said.
“How could you not know…” the doctor starte
d, but Gates cut him off.
“Remember what I said, Doctor. No unnecessary conversations with Mr. Schuett.” Gates looked at Edward. “It’s similar to the blood centrifuges doctors used in your time, but portable and capable of greater analysis in a shorter timeframe.” The doctor frowned when she said “in your time,” but he didn’t speak any more.
The rest of the tests were pretty standard. The doctor checked his blood pressure and his heartbeat, as well as some basic tests for eye movement or pupil dilation or whatever the hell it was. Edward didn’t really know what most of the tests were actually supposed to discover.
The black device was still whirring as the doctor put all his instruments away. “On the outside, he seems mostly fine,” he said to Gates. “A few irregularities, although nothing I would consider alarming if not for his pale coloring or the scabs on his skin.” The doctor looked back at Edward, and he paused for a moment, blinking several times. “Although I must not be paying nearly enough attention as I should have. When he first got out of the car his skin condition seemed worse to me.”
After a few more seconds the device stopped whirring and instead made a ding like an egg timer. The doctor stooped down to look at the readout. “Now let’s take a look at this. Most levels look fine. Hmmm, some very strange blood sugar levels. What about…” He pressed a few buttons. “Looks like he tests negative on all major diseases. Wait…” He stopped pressing buttons and stared down at the device. He didn’t move for many seconds, but when he did he stood up and slowly backed away from Edward.
The Reanimation of Edward Schuett Page 9