“That’s good, but just in case, I feel compelled to tell you that I made sure my daughter grew up knowing jujitsu.”
“I’ll, um, be sure to keep that in mind.”
“We’ve got to go,” Liddie said. “You never know when we might run out of time.” Liddie kissed her mother on the cheek, and they both took a moment for one last hug. Then Liddie led Edward to the nearest elevator. It wouldn’t open without a key code. He noticed her hesitate before punching the numbers in.
“Last chance to turn back,” Edward said. “By doing this you’re probably giving up everything you’ve ever worked for.”
“None of this was ever anything I’ve actually worked for,” Liddie said. “It’s what Mom worked for. I just came along for the ride. It’s probably about time I took my own path.”
She punched in the numbers, but it took an agonizing amount of time for the elevator to reach their floor. Neither of them said anything, and the ding of the elevator stopping at their floor startled Edward. They got in and faced the door as it closed. It took him several seconds to realize they stood closer together than was strictly necessary. Their hands were close enough to brush against each other. After a few more moments of hesitation Liddie took his hand. Neither of them looked at each other, but they didn’t need to. That simple touch said things they may have started thinking but hadn’t brought themselves to actually say.
Then an image flashed in his mind of Julia, sitting next to him on the couch and cuddling as they watched a movie, their hands roaming over each other and touching in ways that were completely innocent yet thoroughly intimate. She’d been gone for fifty years. She wasn’t even like Dana, where he could try convincing himself that she still might be out there alive. She had become a zombie before he did, and even if she was still wandering around out there, which seemed highly unlikely, there did not appear to be any way that she could be like him. Yet none of this had fully hit him yet. By his own internal clock it felt like he’d only seen her a few weeks ago. To him, she might as well have still been alive.
Edward let go of Liddie’s hand and side-stepped away. He hoped it wasn’t too obvious, but he couldn’t do that just yet. He wasn’t ready, and honestly didn’t think he would be ready from quite some time yet.
Liddie still didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her to see if his action had hurt her at all. All he could do was hope she understood.
The awkward moment faded away the instant the doors opened. This wasn’t the same elevator he’d been brought up in, and the area outside was unfamiliar. She stepped out quickly, but he hesitated and looked around to see if there was anyone watching. Based on something Liddie and Danielle had said earlier about the evening news, Edward suspected it was probably pretty late in the day and there wouldn’t be too many people around. But the majority of the building was a college, and he had no idea what kind of activities a school in this day and age might have going on. The elevator at least didn’t open onto anything that looked like a major hallway, since it was pretty featureless except for a few utilitarian-looking doors. He thought he saw someone walk by near the end of the hall, but otherwise there was no one here.
Liddie pointed down the hall in the opposite direction. “Go that way,” she said in whisper. “Take a left when you see a sign for the canteen, but go past the canteen entrance and take the next right. I’m not down here a lot, but I’m pretty sure there’s an emergency exit at the end of that hall. I’ll head to the motor pool. Wait by that exit until you hear me knocking from the other side.”
“What am I supposed to do if somebody comes by and asks me about something?”
“Just, I don’t know, pretend you really are a janitor. Do whatever you can to not look suspicious.”
“I don’t even know what suspicious is supposed to look like these days.”
“Do your best,” Liddie said. She leaned toward him for a second like she intended to do something more, but then backed away. “Try not to panic or anything, okay?” She went off in the opposite direction she had told him to go. He was on his own for the moment.
He went down the hall, but even going the fifty or sixty feet to his first turn felt like an impossible trial. There were cameras mounted near the ceiling, and he did his best not to stare at them. A janitor wasn’t supposed to even notice those things most of the time. He had to keep reminding himself that he was supposed to be top secret, that no one other than the security personnel on his one floor was supposed to know that he even existed, but he kept thinking about all the ways he might be making himself conspicuous to whoever might be watching those cameras. All it took was one over-eager security guard to send someone to check on him, and this would all be over practically before it had begun.
He saw no one else in the halls, however. When he passed the canteen he saw one bored young man in a hairnet behind the counter and a very tired looking student with his nose nearly pressed against some kind of tiny personal computer, but that was all. These people had probably been in and out of here over and over during the last several weeks, yet they’d been completely unaware that something like Edward was right over their heads. No one anywhere even knew he existed except a rare few. If he got caught now and was terminated like had been ordered, no one would care. For all intents and purposes he really didn’t exist.
So what, then, was he supposed to do with his life now? Any minute now Liddie would knock on that door and they would be on the run, with people from the government giving chase soon after. Where were they supposed to go? He supposed he could try going back to Fond du Lac in an effort to discover what had really happened to Dana, but he had to admit that even that one hope he’d clung to now seemed like something he couldn’t find out. After all, the CRS had known that was something he wanted so they would look for him there first. He could escape, but he had no purpose.
Liddie took longer to get to the door than Edward had expected, and he had started to pace by the time she finally knocked. All this worry and paranoia were becoming a bad habit for him. If he kept this up he might become the first zombie in history with neuroses. The thought nearly made him laugh, but he stifled it right away. Didn’t want to draw attention to himself, after all.
The sound of knocking made him jump, and he looked up at the nearest security camera in the corner as though checking to see if it was watching him. He knew that made no sense, but it felt like the thing to do anyway. It wasn’t like he really knew what security devices around here were capable of, anyway. For all he knew the stupid camera could shoot a net to hold him until the guards came to collect him.
Liddie knocked again, more urgently this time, and Edward finally opened the door and went out.
“You had me worried for a second,” Liddie said. “I thought maybe someone had found you.”
“Just letting my imagination get the best of me,” Edward said. “To be completely honest, I’m scared out of my mind right now.”
Liddie gave him a nervous smile. “Good to know I’m not alone. Come on, the van’s right over here.”
They were in an alley that looked similar to where they’d originally dropped him off, with a van parked and running right nearby. Edward looked around and noticed there were cameras here on the outside of the building, too. If they had avoided looking conspicuous before, they were probably failing miserably now. But that hopefully wouldn’t matter. All they needed was a few more minutes.
Liddie ran around to the driver’s side. “Get in. The quicker we get moving, the more likely we can get out of the city before anyone gets sent after us.”
“Are there cameras around the city they can use to find us?” Edward asked.
“Yeah, but that won’t be any problem once we get beyond the city walls. They don’t really have a reason anymore to keep watching the wastelands, and I’ve already disabled the van’s tracker.”
Edward got in, and Liddie was already pulling away before he could close the door. She sped out of the alley and almost hit another car as she turned onto th
e street.
“Don’t speed,” Edward said. “That will just attract the attention of some cop.”
“Can’t afford not to. We have no idea how much time we have left before someone notices you’re gone. Or else maybe discovers Dr. Chella locked in a closet.”
“But if we get pulled over that will just take even longer. Assuming there are still cops and they do still pull people over.”
Liddie sighed and eased her foot off the accelerator. “Sorry. First time I’ve ever been on the run. My mom may have taught me a lot of things, but this was never one of them.”
“You said there’s a wall around the city?”
“Of course. There’s a wall around every city.”
“Are we going to have any trouble getting out?”
“We shouldn’t. The only time anyone ever really scrutinizes anyone is when they’re coming back in. You know, to make sure there’s no illegal reanimated with them or that they’re not infected or anything.”
“So how long before we get there?”
“At this time of night? Not long. Ten minutes at the most.” Liddie hesitated, then pointed at the computer bag she’d left in the footwell of his seat. “Just enough time for you to take a look at that.”
“What is it, anyway?”
“Proof that not the whole world is against you.”
He opened up the bag and pulled out an extremely thin computer. “How do I turn it on?”
“Just touch the screen. I already loaded it with the recording of tonight’s news.”
“One of you mentioned that before,” Edward said. “What was on the news that I would need to know about?”
“For starters, it’s one of the reasons the president gave to have you terminated. He mentioned it during the conference, but I hadn’t seen it yet by that point. I got a quick look at it though when Mom gave it to me. We both thought it would be important for you to see.”
Edward touched the screen. “Do I need…” He was going to ask if he needed to do anything else, but the news report immediately started by itself. A woman who looked to be in her mid-forties sat behind a news desk. Although her hair was in a completely unrecognizable style, nothing else about the scene looked much different than a news cast from his own time. “Welcome back,” the woman said. “Our top story this evening is something that cannot possibly be believed, but several witnesses from the Wisconsin borderlands claim it to be absolutely true. The reanimated have been with us for far longer than anyone wants to remember, but we have always thought we knew what they were capable of. Since Atlanta, no further variations of them have been reported, but some have always claimed that there could be one more, known as a Z7. Up until now, these claims have been treated as nothing more than wild conspiracy theories. But now there may just be evidence. Is there really a Z7? One Wisconsin woman insists there is. Please welcome on tonight’s program Miss Rae Neuman.”
Edward gasped as Rae came on the screen. She’d cleaned herself up and wore a suit, but she was still recognizable as the gun-toting woman who had first treated him like a person when no one else would.
“Thanks for having me,” Rae said.
“Is this a national newscast?” Edward asked.
“Yes. The entire country saw this early this evening.”
The newscaster began asking her questions about what had happened in Fond du Lac, occasionally interrupting the interview to show some of the evidence that the network itself had gathered about the existence of a Z7. There were a few blurry pictures of the standoff in the back of Ringo’s truck, and a few other witnesses were mentioned. Most of them looked like yokels, or at least were portrayed as yokels by the newscast. As the interview continued it became evident to Edward that the newscaster didn’t really take Rae seriously.
“This woman is treating Rae like a joke. Why the hell would the president consider this something threatening enough to have me killed over?”
“Don’t you see?” Liddie said. “Even if most people don’t take this seriously, some people will. That’s enough. I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole thing, but my mother told me this Rae woman was arguing that you should have rights and that the government was keeping you against your will.”
“Which is all completely true,” Edward said.
“Yes, and that’s a problem. Maybe you saw a little of this when you first woke up and maybe you didn’t, but there’s a lot of political tension between the middle of the country and the coasts. Some places, like that town where you were found, have rejoined civilization pretty easily but a lot still resist. They still after all these years resent what they think of as the government leaving the center of the country to die. Any issue relating to the reanimated is liable to stir them up. Some people might think the government is holding a legitimate person against his will, and they’ll want to fight the government over it. Other people will see you as a terrible bioweapon that shouldn’t be allowed in the hands of anyone, especially not the government, and want to fight them over that. So you see, your existence, any way you look at it, is dangerous. And that’s not even including Chella’s theories.”
“You still need to tell me what exactly she…” Edward began, but a sound like a cell phone went off in Liddie’s computer bag and interrupted him.
Liddie looked at him with a hint of panic in her eyes. “That’s my cell.”
“Is there any reason anyone would be calling you right now?” Edward asked.
“No. Only people from the CRS should have that number.”
Edward pulled the cell out of the bag and looked at it. It listed a number on the display screen, but it contained far more digits than phone numbers had possessed in his own time. He recited the number, but Liddie shook her head.
“I’ve never heard of that number before. In fact, that doesn’t even sound like a Stanford number.”
The phone stopped ringing, but started up again only seconds later.
“Think you should answer it?” Edward asked.
“What if it’s someone trying to track us? We can’t have that. In fact, we need to get rid of it altogether or else the CRS can use it to find us.”
The phone stopped and started up again. “Whoever it is, they’re not stopping,” Edward said. “What if it’s your mother trying to warn us about something?”
Liddie gave him another look, then took the phone. She looked around at the few other vehicles on the road, probably to check if anyone was following or watching them, then pulled over onto a side street and answered the phone.
“Who is this?” she asked. There was a pause as she listened to the other person. “Well pardon me if I think it is important. Tell me who you are.” Pause. “That’s for me to decide. How did you even get this number?” Longer pause, which included Liddie giving Edward a confused glance. “Maybe he is.” Pause. “We’re already doing that, but I still don’t see any reason to trust you with any information beyond that.” Pause. “Yes, he’s right here.” Pause. “Yes, but I’m not…” Pause, and then finally she handed the phone to Edward. “Uh, this guy wants to speak to you. He even asked for you by name.”
Edward took the phone. “Hello? Who is this?”
An old man with a raspy voice answered. “I already told the young Miss Gates that I’m a friend. At this point I’d expect you to distrust a claim like that, but for now you have no choice but to accept it. Judging from how quickly she was able to get the phone to you, I’m going to assume that you’re both together and on the run?”
“Why would you assume that?”
“Because my contacts already alerted me about the president’s order to have you destroyed. These same contacts gave me the inkling that Miss Gates might have an interest in your well-being, so I hoped that by contacting her I could convince her to help you escape. I’m glad to find out that this at least is a step I can skip.”
“What exactly is it you want?”
“I want to help you. I’ve been trying to help you since you woke up in that old Walm
art.”
Edward looked at Liddie with surprise. How many people had even been aware that that’s where he had first come to? The answer was even fewer people than had known of his existence in the first place.
“And just how have you been trying to help me?” Edward asked.
“As soon as I heard rumors through my contacts in Merton that you were awake, I tried to find you. I was there when the CRS came to pick you up in Fond du Lac, but I got there too late and had to watch them carry you off. I thought maybe you might be in capable hands with the CRS, but I was wrong I see.”
“So that’s why you’re calling now? You want to help me?”
“Maybe. But I need to see you. I can give you some answers no one else has. You need to come find me.”
“And where do I do that? Are you in California?”
“Unfortunately it won’t be that easy for you. I’m going to give you an address and you have to remember it, especially since I think it is a very bad idea for you two to be carrying around a phone they can track you with. You have to get to Illinois. Specifically, Winnebago, Illinois. Go to 210 North Elida Street. I might have to do a few tests to make sure you’re who I think you are, but after that I can give you answers not even the CRS or the government know.”
“And how would you even have these answers?” Edward asked.
“Because, Mr. Schuett, I am the man who created you.”
And then the old man hung up.
Part Three:
Cross-Country
Chapter Twenty Six
Liddie looked in the rearview as the van approached the Stanford outer gates. On the outside, at least, she looked calm and perfectly put together. She had fixed her hair while they had been pulled over, so at least she didn’t look like she’d just attacked a government scientist. This was something she’d learned from her mother, that ability to look like she had everything under control even when things were not at all right. She’d need that once they got to the gate, since on the inside she was scared completely out of her mind.
The Reanimation of Edward Schuett Page 17