by Guy James
“Now, in a turn of events that I find quite uncomfortably astonishing, water has proven to have exactly the opposite effect. The formerly vile liquid restores and maintains the functioning of my brain, and now even seems to enhance my superb sense of wit—assuming, of course, that such a thing is possible.
“I came up with the solution while I was in the tub: how I could hydrate myself at all times without giving up my much-needed mobility. I certainly could not succumb to an existence in which I lay soaking in a tub all the day through. In my new role as purveyor of the human apocalypse, that would not be fitting at all.
“The solution was simple. I would affix a hydrating contraption to my body that could deliver the needed watering while I moved about the world and evolved all of humankind. Once the idea was fully worked out in my mind, I left the tub and built the contraption from parts that were abundant in my home.
“I filled an empty two liter Coca-Cola bottle with water, affixed plastic tubing and taped constructions of gauze to the top of the open bottle, and overturned it so that the water flowed into and along the gauze, which I shaped to curve away from the bottle.
“I then rooted about until I found an old, splendidly threadbare backpack in my closet. I used my finger to expand the tear in the bottom of the backpack into a hole that was large enough for the taped gauze to fit through. And then I put the Coca-Cola bottle into the backpack, bottom up.
“The backpack, complete with the overturned bottle, went on my back. Thanks in large part to my great and enviable heft, I was unable to use the backpack’s shoulder straps to keep it on. Instead, I had to untie the shoulder straps, and then retie the straps to each other so that I could hang the new loop around my neck.
“I discovered that this resulted in some choking, so I proceeded to turn the backpack around so that the gauze rested against my belly. This produced the desired result, and I followed up by donning four XXXL t-shirts in order to seal in the moisture.”
Milt laughed. “By the time my temporary contraption was finished, the carpet in my basement was sopping wet. I had forgotten to turn the bathtub tap off, and I had not even noticed until that moment. The wet carpet helped soothe my condition, but I turned the tap off out of concern for short circuiting my electronics.
“This inelegant solution was workable, and permitted me to roam about for several hours without other means of hydration. Of course, I looked like a magnificent, perspiring man wearing a papoose baby carrier under his multiple t-shirts. Had there been any observers, they would have either been left to wonder about the air supply of the supposed baby, or they would have assumed that the baby-shaped projection was a misshapen protuberance of my great bulk.
“As you can imagine from my description, the first several iterations of my moisture-bringing device were crude, but in the days following the outbreak, I brought the device up to the level of sophistication that you see before you now.”
The proprietor moaned.
“I put my portable moisturizer through countless tweaks, including the forging of this lightweight steel canister and the development of a theretofore unknown liquid compression technology. I developed it on the back of a fortune cookie fortune from a vintage takeout bag.” He said this in a matter of fact way, as if the discovery of a significant technological advance using anything other than a fortune cookie fortune as a notepad would have been a travesty of science.
“The result was this wonderfully ingenious contraption.” Milt rapped on the canister affixed to his back. His fingers against the thin metal made a faint clank. “This device is, basically, a modified canister, which enables me to travel without other means of hydration for ten hours at a time. In that sense, what I wear now is my mobile battle station, a condensed corollary of my original battle station, the one I was forced to leave behind in my comic book and video game shop.” He sighed. “I do miss Virginia, in case you are wondering. It is so quiet and peaceful there now, but my fate has called me here, and ultimately, my fate beckons me to New York City, that vile expulsion of humanity that the superficial so treasure.”
Milt nodded. “Other than the obvious disadvantage of requiring copious amounts of water in order to remain functional, my new state brings with it several physical improvements. For one, my step is decidedly lightened. I now find that I am able to prance and maneuver about quite nimbly, like the dexterous fauns that I have always believed did exist in Shakespeare’s day, and which the chemical toxicity that we have brought to this world eradicated from the face of this plane, leaving not a trace of said glorious fauns.” Milt lowered his eyes and sighed ruefully.
He looked up again and brightened. “In addition, my asthma is no more, having alighted from my being and drifted down into the nether.”
The proprietor moaned.
Milt crunched down on an onion ring, and tepid, delicious grease shot into his mouth. “You know, I do not require food in my present condition. Yet I find it soothing, and, of course, I do not wish for my bulk to diminish any further. In fact, I was quite alarmed after the outbreak, to find that my mass had been so reduced.
“I didn’t have a scale in my home, because I did not believe in such trifling things, but by the feel of my own body and the way that it moved, I estimated that I had lost close to twenty percent of my body mass. This frightened me, because it would not have been fitting to allow myself to waste away before the next stage had even been properly begun. So I ascended from beneath my storefront and visited the Wegmans, leaving great sopping footsteps in my wake—because that was still at a time when my hydrating device was in a primitive state. I took from the store that which I needed—delectable morsels of sustenance and the contents of the action movie DVD bins.
“Hence, I endeavored to ingest the food and drink that I had scavenged, chewing the miniature Snickers bars and running streams of that most sweet nectar of the gods known as Coca-Cola behind the chewed masses, but, alas, I found that the scrumptious morsels of my past no longer satiated my hunger...because my hunger had abandoned me, and so, quite naturally, there was no hunger left to satiate.
“So I made peace with the discovery that my continued existence on this plane no longer necessitated the consumption of mass quantities of delectable treats, though I do continue to eat on a semi-regular basis, in the hope that my love of the sport will one day return.”
Milt sighed. “After having dealt the final blow to the problem of hydration replenishment and finding that treats no longer enchanted my being as they once had, I allowed my mind to turn to the pressing matter of elevating humanity to the next rung of evolution.
“I awoke rather abruptly to the reality of my true destiny—I was to lead the evolver resurgence against all of humankind in a final, total war. Well, I thought of it as a war at the time. It is only evolution, but viewing it through the lens of war is not wholly inaccurate.” Milt nodded. “It felt as if the lights had suddenly turned on in a room that had always been draped in darkness. I felt as if I was seeing the world for the first time...seeing for the first time what the purpose of all of life was—to move forward, to perfection…to seek perfection.
“It was undeniable that I was unlike the other evolvers, who were themselves a vast leap forward in the evolution of the human race. And I had moved even beyond them. I had retained my mental faculties in their entirety, and my mind—when properly hydrated—churned at an even faster rate than it had before my evolution.
“Though there were times, when I was still adjusting to my state of existence, that I hungered for vengeance, all of those feelings are now gone. I know now that it was never vengeance that I sought. None of my current actions are motivated by any sort of hatred, animosity, need for revenge, or, to be frank, any emotion, really.
“I think that it would be easy for humans to say that my insecurities had progressed into rage, and had festered further into a great, rotten sore of hatred that drove me to wipe humanity from the planet.
“Well, none of that is true. It is
of course true, and I have documented the same in my journal, that people never accepted me. I had never been an athlete, and though I had always fancied my soft, massive body to be irresistible to the fairer sex, said fairer sex never gave any sign of sharing in my sentiments.” Milt shrugged.
“None of that ever disturbed me, however, in part because I understood that it was of piddling importance, and in part because I found a means of fulfillment in life that no friend or woman could have matched: World of Warcraft. I immersed myself in that superior reality and I became the greatest World of Warcraft warrior of all time, both in backward-looking and forward-looking terms. My skill was without equal…matchless…limitless. And now, as a result of the change I went through in the Virginia outbreak, I became limitless outside of the virtual world as well. I became even mightier than a comic book hero. I became he who sits before you now: a veritable god.”
The proprietor moaned.
“I know that you can sense it, for who cannot? And, it was not the case that when I took the reins of my great power, that I wanted to bend the rest of the world to my will, as I was in the habit of doing to the World of Warcraft world on which I had exacted thousands of hours of mighty video game justice. Though it is true that the whole world—the whole biological world—is now my video game universe, I do not seek to conquer it. I do not begin the evolution in New York City as part of some great, militaristic design or even as any sort of homage to those zombie apocalypse movies that are so popular now, those whose writers maintain that it would be poor form for a plague to begin anywhere other than in New York City.”
Milt took a deep breath. “No. I begin there because that is where Sven, Jane, and Lorie are. And no, I am not seeking revenge. Instead, I am seeking them, for I believe that they are prime candidates for the gift that I am empowered to bestow. I believe they are fit to be evolved.”
Milt grinned. “Perhaps once Sven joins my ranks, he may even experience a boost in his intelligence. My own evolution granted me such a miraculous expansion in my mind…and I believe that if Sven goes through something even close to what I have gone through, he too will understand. He will understand me.” Milt stared at nothing for a few moments.
“I proved it,” Milt said. “Before I left Virginia to consummate my plot, I confirmed what I had been suspecting for some time after my evolution: that my intelligence had increased to epic proportions.”
The proprietor thrashed violently, and a small, black glob shot out of her mouth, landed on the edge of her lower lip, and stuck there.
“Quite right,” Milt said. “I loaded my favorite open source Dual N-Back mind training program and increased the speed to my usual value of one and a half seconds per trial and set the N to the value that I had been unable to surpass for some months before the outbreak: twenty-five.
“I was both surprised and pleased to find the setting pitifully unchallenging, so I increased the speed as high as it would go, to three tenths of a second per trial.” Milt grinned. “I remember that moment vividly. I was about to click start when it dawned on me that an N value of twenty-five was of little interest at that juncture. Hence, I increased the N value to thirty, snorted quite adorably, and then increased it further. It was not until the N value was set at fifty, that I clicked start.
“Then something truly profound took place. I was overcome by sheer amazement at my new height of mental dexterity. Those moments felt as if I were watching myself play the game from outside of my body, scoring one hundred percent over and over and over again as I increased the N value higher and higher and yet higher.
“As the game became more difficult, my awareness was snapped back into my body and I became progressively more involved in what was happening on the screen. I could feel each region of my brain light up and spring into action as the demands of the program required. I continued to increase the settings, forging new connections and accessing previously untapped regions of my brain. I literally felt my brain evolving into something different, more powerful than any brain that had ever existed.”
Milt looked down into his lap and smiled, hints of sadness tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Finally, when I reached an N value of eighty-two, I made my first mistake.”
16
YORK AVENUE AND 60TH STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Jane pumped her arms and accelerated up the incline. She had been running hard for forty minutes, trying to get to the point where she had nothing left in the tank. She was almost there. Her lungs burned, and her muscles ached and were beginning to cramp, but her focus did not falter.
She shot quick glances around her, reminding herself to always be aware of her surroundings and to watch for any changes.
“Attention to detail,” she said through clenched teeth, “will keep you alive.”
Beyond the fence and through the archway of the support to her left, the metallic underbelly of the Queensboro Bridge stretched out toward Roosevelt Island and Queens.
In the street to her right, cars traveled north and south. The cars were still moving in their irregular but usual spurts, Jane noted, and that was good.
Behind her, another runner began her own trek up the incline of the block.
Ahead of her, an old woman was walking two poodles. The poodles held their heads high, and made no sign of trepidation or discomfort. Jane noted all these signs and decided that all was as it should be. There was no sign of an outbreak.
She ran harder. This was the part of all of it that she could control, and she needed to control it. There were so many other factors beyond her reach, and beyond the reach of Sven and Mayor Melling’s office…unknowable factors, even. If there was going to be another outbreak, she was going to be far more prepared for it than she had been for the first.
Ever since they had arrived in New York, Jane had begun to treat her body like a machine—a machine that could always be improved.
Take, for example, Jane thought, your pathetic climb up this hill. You could do that faster. Tomorrow, you will.
The street leveled out and Jane ran even faster, going south on the east side of
York Avenue.
The doormen in the lobbies of the fancy buildings turned to watch her as she ran past, as they had done since she got to New York and began her exercise regimen.
Jane ran up the block to her own building and slowed down. There she walked up and down the block twice until her breathing had calmed. She approached the lobby of her building and one of the senior doormen, Angel, opened the door and held it open for her.
“Thanks Angel,” she said, panting, and walked inside.
“You’re very welcome. How was your workout today, Jane?” Angel let go of the door, and it shut.
“Good, very good, thank you.” Jane walked through the sparkling, marble lobby and into the waiting elevator. Angel watched her go as he returned to his desk to sort through the day’s tasks.
Jane went up to her floor and entered the apartment that she shared with Sven, Lorie, and Ivan. She locked the door behind her, and, as she usually did when she entered the apartment, stared in amazement.
It looked like something out of a movie: marble floors, high ceilings, granite countertops, modern appliances, a view of the East River—an actual minus, Jane had realized, given the river’s lack of visual appeal, but a coveted minus—three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, separate kitchen and dining areas, a spacious living room with an attached but secluded den, windows with double-panes to block out the noise from outside, and more than enough closet space.
She remembered how Harry had presented the apartment to them in a semi-furnished state, and had given Jane and Lorie a generous budget to complete furnishing and decorating their new home.
“We did a great job,” Jane said to herself as she kicked off her running shoes and tried to shake off the feeling of bedazzlement.
Before she took her shower, Jane went into the den for a minute, as she did after each of her workouts. To the left of Sven’s workstation
that he used to work from home on nights and on weekends, there stood a row of picture frames. In the frames were photographs of those who Sven, Jane, and Lorie had lost in the Virginia outbreak, those the z—
Jane shook her head and corrected herself in her mind: those the virus had taken. Missing from the row of photographs were one of Milt and one of Randy. Jane was still trying to track down some family members or loved ones of theirs, so that she could add them to the little shrine in the den and pay them proper respect.
In front of the row of photographs stood a candle burned two thirds of the way through, the running of its wax covering its base in thick, rippled layers that to Jane looked noble.
She looked at each of the photographs in turn, then left the room and shut the door behind her.
17
CITY HALL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
“I’m sorry,” Mallory said, “I…I just wanted to hear your thoughts.”
“It’s alright,” Sven said, looking up from the figurine to Mallory. “I called them zombies all through the Virginia outbreak, and continued to call them that for a while afterward. After the outbreak and during the campaign, there were a lot of people who told us that they didn’t like the term—a lot of people who had lost loved ones. They didn’t want their family members who had become victims of the virus referred to as ‘zombies,’ as inhuman monsters out of a movie or video game. They’re absolutely right. It’s an ignorant and insensitive term, and so we’ve taken the position that victims of the outbreak should be referred to respectfully, as victims, or infected individuals, but in all instances as humans, as people.”