Undead L.A. 2

by Sagliani, Devan

  “So it's like living out one movie after another?”

  “Precisely,” Larry agreed. “That's a great way of looking at it, only instead of pretending to be someone you are not you actually become that person.”

  “So why don't I remember any of this?”

  “You do,” Larry beamed, “once your performance is complete and has been captured. But while you are in your virtual environment all previous knowledge of your experiences is reduced back to what is essential for you to know. That way your reactions remain authentic, your responses visceral and genuine. That's what makes you the best. There is no one who can hold a candle to one of your performances, Jeremy. Quite simply put, we've never seen anything like it. That's why it's an honor to be sitting here with you, sir.”

  “You make it sound so amazing, but from what I can remember all I've done is sit in my house reliving the same day over and over again.” Jeremy felt the anger leaving him now as excitement replaced it, the questions multiplying in his head like leaves shaking on a tree.

  “That's just the glitch,” Larry said reassuringly. “It's being dealt with. Soon you'll be returned to normal and this memory will be removed and stored. Think of this as behind the scenes footage that will be added to a DVD, like a directors commentary.”

  “At this point I'd just be happy to leave my house again and see other people,” Jeremy admitted, feeling giddy at the possibility. “So how does it work? Do I get a say in where I end up next?”

  “Yes and no,” Larry cautioned. “We've always taken into consideration what you want, but there are others who determine how you are cast, so to speak.”

  “Who?”

  “Your adoring fans.” Larry waved his hands to reveal a sea of humans screaming and chanting Jeremy’s name. They were no longer in the bar. Now they sat in a studio on comfy couches as if they were on a daytime television talk show. There was a great wall of glass behind them that Larry had gestured to, where throngs of people cried out for him like he was one of the Beatles. In his heyday he hadn't known this level of popularity. It was intoxicating. Another glitch hit them, causing the crowd of admirers to warp into monstrous aliens, but Jeremy didn't mind anymore. The attention was intoxicating.

  “All of these people are here for me?” Jeremy questioned, his voice near a whisper.

  “And billions more sentient beings,” Larry grinned. “It's safe to say, in the parlance of your times, that you are more popular than Jesus ever was, if not simply more entertaining. Every second of the day there are fans downloading and reliving your adventures. You are quite simply an entertainment god. It's part of why you were attacked.”

  “I was attacked?” Jeremy snapped back to the moment, recoiling in his overly comfy sofa chair. “By who?”

  “It's not important,” Larry said soothingly. “We've traced the hack back to its original source and are dealing with those responsible. All you need to know is that you were never compromised. We've completed a full scan and it appears that you have experienced no perceivable loss. We've also determined that no extra code was added. So far as we can determine you are unchanged.”

  “So that's why I've been stuck?”

  “Yes,” Larry conceded. “Hackers broke into your data file and attempted to revert you back to day zero. We've been testing your code line by line for anything they might have added.”

  “I thought you said I couldn't die or be harmed?” Jeremy questioned, an icy feeling creeping back up his spine. “What happens if they try it again?”

  “They won't,” Larry assured him. “They've been taken care of. That's all you need to know.”

  “What if they slipped something past you and I freak out at some point in the future and go postal?”

  “We don't see any real threat or danger,” Larry continued, the smile returning to his fabricated face. “Like I said, you are extremely valuable to us, which is why they selected you. What they were unaware of is that we keep a master copy of you locked away someplace safe that cannot be accessed. It's the version of who you were when you came to us and asked to be translated, so it would set you back about a hundred years if we ever had to use it, but it would allow us the ability to see what's been altered and fix it.”

  Jeremy felt himself relaxing at the knowledge he'd been backed up. He remembered getting wasted one night and writing some of the best jokes of his entire career, only to lose them all when the hotel had a power outage and his laptop had died. It had haunted him for the rest of his life, causing him to wake in a sweaty panic more than one night from the bad dream, even years later when automatic backup was invented and files were saved on the cloud.

  “So what's next then?”

  “I guess that depends on you,” Larry said, winking once more before transforming from the president into a popular lesbian daytime talk show host with spiky blonde hair and an infectious smile. “Your fans want to know. What role do you want to play next?”

  Jeremy smiled.

  “I've always loved the Old West,” he admitted with a boyish grin. “I grew up watching Spaghetti Westerns, reading Louis L'Amour books, and looking up to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I used to go visit Louis at his gravesite over there in Forest Lawn Memorial Park after he passed from lung cancer. Never got to meet him in real life though.”

  “And in this scenario,” the host said, her blue eyes sparkling with curiosity, “would you play the bad guy, the misunderstood outlaw, or would you be more comfortable sticking to the Wyatt Earp type roles?”

  “I picture myself playing somewhere in the middle,” Jeremy confessed. “Not all good, but not evil in any way. If anything, I'd like to be a gunslinger like Doc Holliday.”

  “I imagine you'd probably claim your fair share of damsels in distress, too,” the host flirted.

  “God willing,” Jeremy candidly replied to peels of laughter from throngs of fans who were now pushing in closer and closer to them, the walls seeming to have melted away like a mirage.

  “What do you think? Would Jeremy make a fantastic gunslinger in the Wild, Wild West?”

  A roar of thundering applause washed over them from all sides. The lesbian talk show host stuck her hand out towards Jeremy. He took it firmly and gave her a strong shake.

  “Good luck to you, Jeremy. And thank you. It's been a real honor.”

  Before he could reply there was a gentle whirring as the room began to spin, causing all the faces to blend together. Jeremy closed his eyes to keep from getting dizzy. The screams began to fade out, replaced by the sound of a gusting breeze of wind blowing sand and debris. Jeremy leaned forward to keep from being sick, accidentally genuflecting in the process. He expected to feel the smooth texture of the sound stage, but instead his hands sank knuckle deep into soft dirt. The sensation of spinning ended, and he opened his eyes to discover he was now on the edge of a dry creek bed ringed with patches of scrub brush. Looking up from the arroyo he noticed wooden buildings in the distance. He stood upright, feeling his newly formed, but still quite heavy, gun belt shift in the process. A quick glance informed him that he was now the owner of a pair of matching twin pistols inlaid with mother of pearl handles. They jutted out from either side of his hips in their leather holster. He wore a black, wide rimmed hat on his head and equally black, though admittedly dusty, hard cowboy boots on his feet. A snort from behind caused him to wheel around to see a gorgeous chestnut brown Palomino with a leather saddle waiting for him.

  “How the hell did I get here, and who the hell am I?”

  It was no use. No matter how hard he focused his memories always seemed just beyond his reach, hidden behind a cascade of dark water he could not pierce. His horse whinnied impatiently, letting him know it was hungry. Jeremy took it by the reins and began ambling towards town, slowly and on foot. The smell of cooked meat wafting in his direction reminded him that he was hungry as well, the sudden knowledge that he hadn't eaten in several days filling him, and that whatever he came across might very well be his last meal if he
wasn't careful. There it is. The memories came flooding back into him all at once. He was a fugitive with a bounty on his head, a man wanted for a crime he didn't commit, but he was going to turn it around. By God, he was going to find the man who had done this to him and kill him dead, and restore his own name and honor if it was the last thing he ever did.

  ***

  The Hollywood Walk of Fame comprised more than 2,500 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California.

  The stars were a permanent public monument to the achievements of individuals in the entertainment industry. They bore the names of a mix of actors, musicians, directors, producers,musical and theatrical groups, fictional characters, and more.

  The Walk of Fame was administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and maintained by the self-financing Hollywood Historic Trust.

  It was a popular tourist destination, with over 10 million visitors every year.

  ***

  MAY THEY NOT BE FORGOTTEN

  The last thing Kathleen remembered was slipping away from her body, the bottle of pills rolling smoothly out of her limp hand and softly thudding into the plush hotel carpeting. She floated up slowly over her body, taking in a last glance of her frail cancer and chemotherapy emaciated corpse as the color left the cheeks and the eyes went cold and empty.

  She felt a deep sense of relief at not being trapped in there anymore, the sensation expanding like an endless cloud in her chest—and at the edges the electrical thrill of attachment, a soft rushing need to hold on to the memories of her life as they fell away from her, endowing the event of her death with all the more exhilaration.

  It was hard to believe her life was over. In a flash, it seemed as if it had only just begun a short while ago, her sense of time distorted by her flagging consciousness. Hadn’t she just been a kid last week? Going to prom? Asking her best friend, Danielle, what colleges she thought she should apply to? Images from her life whirred past so rapidly that she made no attempt to grab on to them.

  A soft pulsing light of indescribable brilliance blossomed above her head like a fresh halo, beckoning her towards its iridescent center. She looked up at it in wonder, briefly tasting a fleeting memory from her freshman college year as it washed through her one final time.

  It’s like the Sistine Chapel, she thought, only a million times more amazing, and without all the crowds!

  She fought back the urge to giggle, not at the dawning realization of life after death—a considerable revelation in and of itself—but at how very textbook it all seemed all of a sudden. Every scrap of what she had heard in her life about what she might encounter in her final moments was literally playing out for her like a movie. She couldn’t help but wonder if at any moment it might all come apart and reveal the mechanism underlying this grand hallucination. She fought the growing pull towards the center and into the alluring shimmer.

  What is there to gain by fighting it, she wondered. Why not let go and see where this stream takes me. What have I got left to lose?

  At last she gave in and was whisked away, like a fallen leaf that's landed in a stream just strong enough to trundle small rocks. After a while she came to a rest in what felt like a soft bed of feathers. There was a sucking sensation over her head as something was removed. She was in a room with two people, a man and a woman, both smiling at her. She was lying on her back in a bed that swiftly folded up and became a chair.

  “Welcome back,” the man said pleasantly.

  “Where am I?” Kathleen asked, her head in a fog.

  “You're on EV-ONE,” the woman filled in.

  “EV-ONE?” Kathleen parroted back.

  “Earth Vessel One,” the man explained. “You're still under my care.”

  The realization of where she was gently dawned on her like a wonderful surprise.

  “I'm back on board the ship,” she abruptly shouted out like a game show winner. “I'm home. It's all been part of an interactive simulation. I chose to do this, and now I'm back. Thank God!”

  “That's right,” the woman smiled encouragingly. “And you're doing great.”

  “It takes a minute to get the system back up and running,” the man clarified, “but fear not. You will come around. It will all come back to you. Just give it a sec.”

  Kathleen stood up and took off her robe, revealing a stylish jumper underneath with a slit that ran from her hips to her breasts—the kind she'd always dreamed of wearing before she got sick, but never had the courage to actually try. Her memory came rushing back to her all at once, like a great lake being filled in a single downpour.

  “I'm Kathleen,” she called out. “I live in New Los Angeles.”

  “That's correct,” the man responded. “And who am I?”

  “You're my doctor,” she grinned. “You're the one who cured me of my cancer.”

  “Good job,” the woman’s voice rang out.

  “Looks like you're in tip-top shape, kiddo,” the man informed her. “Best looking hundred-year-old woman I've seen since this morning. I've scheduled you for another checkup in a month. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Make sure you stay hydrated, and I'll see you soon.”

  “Thank you, doctor,” Kathleen smiled before picking up her purse and walking out the door.

  EV-ONE was the primary hub for all former Earthlings, a ship filled mostly with offices and auditoriums. It was where the diaspora of human survivors came to discuss politics, watch live sporting events, get monthly health checkups and treatments, and be educated on the history of their universe—including the demise of their original home: the planet Earth. All other human-related ships were connected to it via the teleporter.

  Kathleen remembered this as she swiped her plastic clearance key over the security module, causing the circular chamber to spring open. She stepped inside and held her breath. She always held her breath when she teleported. No matter how many times she did it she just couldn't get used to it.

  How does it know how to take me apart and put me back together, she futilely wondered. And what if it turns me into a different version of myself, an older copy like the one I just experienced in that simulation?

  It was a thought that haunted her with each jump, and this one was no different. It was only when she was back on her home ship that she began relaxing into to her old, familiar self. Not that she hadn't had cancer, or gone to Los Angeles during the zombie apocalypse that signaled the end of the world—only to find that none of them would eat her infected flesh—or returned to her fancy hotel and eaten a bottle of pills and died. Yes, all of that had really happened. It was a matter of record, and therefore it couldn't be disputed. It was also a matter of record that as she lay dying she'd been brought aboard a huge ship, and carried up in a beam of light. They'd saved her, preserved her, given her a wonderful new life and an amazing new home right near the beach, of all places!

  “I’ve always wanted to live on the water in Santa Monica,” she laughed. “I just could never afford it before the end of the world.”

  A pang of guilt at leaving her mother and her best friend, Aasiyah, behind shot through her, but she pushed past it. She'd gotten used to it over the years, but for some reason it always came up during her treatments.

  “They'd have wanted this life for me,” Kathleen reminded herself. “They'd have been willing to die a thousand times for me to have it. Besides, I didn't choose this. It was chosen for me. I won the lottery.”

  She'd never been particularly lucky, a fact driven home hard by the cancer that had taken up residence in her tender body just a few years after her husband, David, had left her for another woman. She couldn't remember winning much of anything in her life. She'd never been the lucky caller to a radio station who snagged the cool concert tickets, or been randomly selected for a dream house. The closest she'd come to winning a vacation was the one she'd gone on to Los Angeles during the end of the world, which was the whole reason
it took so long to find her in the first place. She'd tried slots in Reno one time, and nickel roulette, but quickly lost what little earnings she’d made. As it turned out fate had a sense of humor after all—since she'd been a loser in life she’d became a winner in death.

  I won fair and square, she thought. That's nothing to be ashamed of.

  She stopped at the gates to New Los Angeles, taken in by the images of life in the City of Angels as she'd just experienced it: the chaos before the end. It seemed like she’d been there just hours earlier, instead of over sixty years later. After a while it became too overwhelming to watch, and her eyes wandered to the first of several holographic placards that lined the walls leading to the city gates. She read the first one as she passed.

  On September 20, the zombie virus was released into the dense population of transients on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It spread like unstoppable wildfire in all directions, decimating everything in its path for six full weeks before measures were taken to cleanse the scourge. These stories take place in those final times.

  The memorials are told through the eyes of several different Angelinos, each offering a unique perspective to the events as they unfolded, and to the aftermath of the virus. They have not been edited for content, but remain preserved in their initial capturing. They bear witness not only to the tragedies of that unforgettable period, but also to the city's former glory.

  May they not be forgotten, but remain uncensored for future generations, so all may understand the choices that we made. And may they also serve as a reminder, not only of mankind’s infinite potential for good, but also of their latent animal desire for cruelty and suffering, and how the constant struggle between these two opposing forces defined what it meant to be alive in the era commonly referred to as the 21st century.