by SD Tanner
‘We have trees,’ she said facetiously.
‘And that’s all we’ll have,’ Mackenzie replied seriously.
She shrugged. She had no interest in humans. They were another species and they didn’t seem very smart to her. During her trip home, some were unpleasant, others dangerous and a few kindly, but none were relevant to her. As for the hunters, they were dumb dogs and not worth much thought. She didn’t understand why Mackenzie was so earnest about having hope. Surely having life was enough. He’d killed her to avoid a future where he believed hope was lost and she wondered again why he had so much confidence in his visions.
‘How does your precognition work?’ She asked curiously. ‘Do you have visions?’
‘Sort of,’ Mackenzie replied. ‘It’s like being in the future. I can observe the future.'
‘Can you make it happen?’ She asked. ‘Can you do it now?’
He laughed and said, ‘No. It just happens. I found it really confusing at first and I wasn’t sure what was real. I’m getting the hang of it now, but I still don’t know how to control it.’
‘Sounds like an odd way to live,’ she said bluntly.
Mackenzie nodded and said, ‘Yeah, it’s kinda freaky.’
So this young man saw a future and decided she had to die. He killed her and she was reborn into another body without a cohesive memory of her previous existence. In her previous existence, she supported humans and was in love with one of them, but all she could remember clearly was waking in the white room and travelling to her home. Other than that, she had some basic knowledge of how to talk and care for herself, some disconnected pictures in her mind and a vague awareness that something seemed to be missing. Mostly she felt confused and at times a deep sense of loss washed through her, but she didn’t know what she lost or why she felt that way.
Sighing, she asked, ‘What do you want me to do now?’
Seeming to understand her difficult situation, Mackenzie said kindly, ‘I thought we’d hang out here for a little while. It’s comfortable and I have supplies. When you’re ready, maybe we can go to where the bases are and you can see for yourself what they’re doing there. Maybe it’ll trigger some memories for you.’
She wasn’t convinced that was something she wanted to do and said, ‘I will think about that, but for now I would like to stay here with you.’
CHAPTER NINE: When wrong is right (TL)
Lydia’s room at the CDC was really only a small area in the storage room that was fitted with a hanging sheet forming a partition from the racks of medical supplies. In her tiny makeshift space, all she had was a bed and a box where she kept a few clothes and toiletries. While he was still lying naked on her narrow cot, Lydia was getting dressed in her ACUs and running her hands through her hair, she formed an untidy ponytail.
He thought her living quarters were more basic than the average boot lived in and he asked curiously, ‘Why do you live like this?’
Looking down at him, she asked, ‘What do you mean?’
Smiling up at her, he said plainly, ‘You live like a tramp.’
Lydia snorted and said, ‘Not everyone needs a luxury cruise ship and a five star resort, TL.’
He didn’t understand why he was bothering to comment. How Lydia lived was none of his business, they weren’t dating and neither had made any commitment to the other. It wasn’t what he wanted to have with her, but it was all she was offering and he wasn’t the type to be pushy. Gears and Pax thought he was playing up with both Izzie and Lydia, but it wasn’t true. He’d gone to see Izzie the night after the hunter attack on Haven, but he’d been far too drunk to do anything other than fall asleep. He thought, given Lydia was also seeing Captain Ted, the only person who was playing up was Lydia.
Izzie wanted to get married, have kids and live in a house with a white picket fence. He hadn’t wanted that life before the end of the world and he certainly didn’t want it now. Life had always been transient for him. His mother’s family had been wealthy, but she’d fallen in love with a soldier when she was eighteen. Her parents hadn’t approved of the relationship and she eloped to marry his father. When he was three years old, despite being fit, his father unexpectedly died of a heart attack and his mother was left with very little financial support and no family to help her deal with the crisis. Unable to cope, she turned to alcohol and after a few stints in a psychiatric ward, was diagnosed with manic depression. Social Services saw fit to remove him from her and he was put into foster care.
He was five years old when he entered the system and for the next five years he lived in no less than eleven different homes. It was an unstable childhood and he got to the point where he didn’t even bother to unpack his bags. His childhood taught him life was unpredictable and people couldn’t be relied upon. When he was sent to the Ranch, he met Gears and Pax and he assumed he wouldn’t know them for long. That was not to be the case and Gears set them both straight about that from the get go. Gears told them they had to stick together and be there for one another no matter what. He said from that day on they were to be brothers and were to always have one another’s back. He believed Gears that day and to date neither Gears nor Pax had ever let him down.
He didn’t want to get married, have kids and live in a house with a white picket fence and that meant he didn’t want Izzie. What he wanted was a woman he could rely on in the same way he could rely on his brothers. She didn’t have to be perfect. She just had to be someone who would be there for him even if he were being unreliable. Not that he was ever unreliable, but sometimes he got tired of being so steady and it would be good to know occasionally that he could be the crazy one. He guessed what he wanted was a woman who could deal with his real self and not the one everybody else needed to see.
Sighing, he climbed out of the bed and as he got dressed in his ACU’s, he said, ‘I hear you’ve been seeing Ted.’
Now dressed, Lydia was waiting for him while he tied his boots and said, ‘Yes, I have. Is that a problem for you?’
It was a problem. He didn’t want to share her with anybody much less Captain Ted. Being a one-woman kind of man, he wasn’t happy with the current situation and he wanted Lydia, but if he were to have any chance at all, he’d have to put up with her terms. Deciding he wouldn’t say anything about it, he was surprised when he said, ‘Yeah, it kinda is, Lydia.’
Looking surprised. Lydia asked, ‘Why? We never said this was exclusive.’
Still surprising himself at the direction he was taking with her, but deciding to go with it, he said honestly, ‘I know, but I always wanted more than something casual with you and if casual is all you’re offering then I’m going to pass.’
A frown flitted across her striking face and Lydia asked disbelievingly, ‘Are you dumping me?’
Apparently he was and he replied, ‘Yeah, I guess I am.’
Now Lydia’s eyes widened and she asked, ‘Are you jealous of Ted?’
Sighing and feeling a little embarrassed, he said, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘What if we agree to make this exclusive?’ Lydia asked tentatively.
That was his intention from the start and he was frustrated she was only just realizing that. Sounding annoyed, he asked, ‘Why wasn’t it exclusive from the start?’
Lydia gave him a small smile and said, ‘You’re being unreasonable, TL. We didn’t know one another and the end of the world made it hard to make future plans. You know that.’ Reaching over to him, she put her arm around his waist and pulling him to her said, ‘I wasn’t ready before and I don’t like you messing about with Izzie either.’
Letting himself being pulled into her body, he put his arms around her and now smiling, he said, ‘You heard about that.’
Leaning into his body, she said, ‘Yeah and it really pissed me off. Don’t do it again.’
He snorted softly and kissing her, he said, ‘Right back at ya.’
Surprised by her sudden willingness to commit, and even more surprised by his own need to confront her,
he felt a deep delight at knowing she was finally his. Never being one to wear his heart on his sleeve, he gave little outward sign of how happy he felt. With their arms around one another’s waists, they walked out of the dingy storage room and back into the test area of the CDC, where Gears was waiting in the corridor.
Looking them up and down, Gears asked dourly, ‘Ya kept me waitin’ while you two were doin’ that?’
Smirking at his brother, he said, ‘You’ve kept us waiting enough times while you’ve been doing that.’
Rolling his eyes, Gears turned to Lydia and said, ‘Show me the super hunter.’
Lydia briefly squeezed his waist before letting him go and briskly walking into the secured test room. Inside the room, sitting in a metal cage that probably wouldn’t hold it if it really tried to escape, was the super hunter Gears captured at the Yum Yum cookie factory. The super hunter was standing, legs astride, arms hanging loosely and it was chained by the left leg to a metal frame bolted to the wall. It was also gagged to stop it from attacking the staff. With its blue on blue eyes, it was hard to tell what it was looking at although it appeared to ignore them as they walked into the room.
Standing outside the cage, Lydia said, ‘We’ve taken every type of sample we could think of from it and we’ve tried almost everything to disable it. Sample wise it’s as human as Ip was. Other than the enlarged lobe on the right side of the brain, which makes it telepathic, it’s the same as you and I. Like Ip, it has higher metabolism and limited awareness of pain. Unlike Ip, it doesn’t have increased serotonin levels.’
Screwing his large face up in disgust, Gears said, ‘So it dies like a human, but we already knew that.’
Lydia nodded and said, ‘Yes, and it can be disabled like a human which means anything that harms a human also harms it.’
Studying the super hunter and feeling equally as disgusted as Gears, he asked, ‘Does it breathe? The hunters don’t breathe.’
‘Well hunters do use oxygen, but they use very little. It’s absorbed through their skin because they don’t have lungs,’ Lydia said. ‘But the super hunter breathes like a human.’
He and Gears looked at one another and he could tell they were both trying to think of low risk ways they might be able to kill it and Gears asked, ‘Can we gas it?’
‘Yes and no,’ Lydia replied. ‘Gas will affect it, but with a higher tolerance for pain, the effect is less than you get with a human.’
Gears grunted and asked, ‘Why are the super hunters different to the hunters?’
Shrugging, Lydia replied, ‘I don’t really know, but they seem to be on a different evolution path. There do seem to be less of them so maybe this a path that has failed.’
Nodding, Gears said, ‘So, in theory, we could gas it, freeze it, drown it, bomb it, shoot it or just kick the shit outta it?’
Rolling her eyes, Lydia replied dryly, ‘Yes, Gears. Whatever nasty stuff you do to your human enemies, you can do to a super hunter.’
Gears nodded at him and said firmly, ‘Good enough. Let’s try CS gas on the little fuckers. See how they like some tear gas.’
He nodded back at Gears and said, ‘If they’re blinded by the tear gas, then they won’t be able to control the hunters. It’s got to be worth a shot.’
‘Still gonna need the army of the weird to clear the buildin’ so we can get in and kill the super hunter,’ Gears added. ‘I’ll talk to Pax and Ted and set up a test.’
Nodding at Gears, he turned back to Lydia and asked, ‘Can we communicate with it?’
Lydia replied, ‘I believe it understands what we’re saying and it can probably talk. There’s certainly no reason why it can’t. Unlike Ip, it has a language center. So yes, if it chose to speak then you could talk to it.’
With a look of disdain, Gears peered at the super hunter and asked, ‘Have ya tried talkin’ to it?’
Lydia rolled her eyes and said, ‘Of course we have, but it never answers us.’
Stepping away from the cage, Gears turned back to Lydia and asked, ‘Do ya think it’s talkin’ to others telepathically?’
‘No reason why it wouldn’t be, which is why we keep it isolated,’ Lydia said. ‘And we probably shouldn’t be talking in front of it now.’
Giving Lydia a stern look, Gears said, ‘Ya coulda mentioned that earlier, Lydia. Let’s move on.’
They walked down the corridor towards the rooms with the other test subjects. So far, they had only infected four people with the designer virus. Faye died within an hour of being infected, Chris pretty much turned into a hunter, the Major was still in a coma and Mackenzie survived, but killed Ip and ran away. Overall he didn’t consider it much of a success and he was surprised Gears insisted on making the infected critical to their plans.
As they walked into the room with the infected, he asked, ‘Gears, do you really think infecting more people is a good idea?’
Gears sighed and said, ‘If I hadda choice I wouldn’t do it, TL, but we’re runnin’ low on options.’
‘You better be sure about what you’re doing, Gears,’ Lydia said sternly. ‘You’re going to have a lot of people lives on your conscience.’
Sounding frustrated, Gears replied, ‘Do ya think I ain’t thought about that? We won’t win this war with conventional weapons alone. There’s somethin’ very wrong about what’s goin’ on here. If I thought we jus’ hadda deal with hunters I wouldn’t do this, but it’s not that simple.’ Sighing, he added, ‘I wish it was, but it ain’t and we gotta deal with what is and not what we want it to be.’
Looking slightly apologetic, Lydia said, ‘I pretty much live here at the CDC and whenever I do leave I’m escorted by an armed guard, so I don’t really see what’s going on out there. I’m trusting you, Gears. If you say this is how it has to be, then I’ll do whatever you ask.’
Gears nodded and said, ‘Thank you, but…’ Looking intently at Lydia, he said firmly, ‘Ya keep bein’ my conscience Lydia and you’re under orders to kick my ass any time ya think I ain’t thinkin’ it through right.’
Lydia smiled and said, ‘I’ll never need your permission to kick your ass, Gears.’
Chuckling, Gears said, ‘You’re feisty, Lydia and I like that about ya.’
They walked into the test room where Chris was lying, firmly strapped to his bed. Walking in, Chris turned his head sharply towards them and hissed.
Slightly taken aback, Gears said, ‘Shit. He’s a whole lot more hunter than human.’
‘Oh, he’s not a hunter, Gears,’ Lydia said as she approached the bed. ‘He has organs like a super hunter.’
Lying strapped to the bed, Chris couldn’t move but he licked his lips and said smugly, ‘Come to see me again. Just can’t stay away from the good stuff can you, honey?’
Surprised, he asked, ‘He speaks?’
Gears stood at the foot of the bed and asked loudly, ‘What the fuck are ya?’
Chris’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he snarled and drooled. From underneath the sheet, it became obvious Chris had an erection.
Noticing the slight bulge under the sheet, Gears winced and said, ‘That’s not the effect I was hopin’ for.’ Turning to Lydia, he asked, ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lydia replied. ‘He laughs, cries, vomits, rants, screams, can be over-sexualized and is mostly vulgar, angry and unpleasantly personal. He seems to be insane. Oh, and he likes to defecate and urinate without warning.’
‘He’s as useless infected as he was uninfected then,’ he commented dourly.
‘Ya should get rid of him,’ Gears said bluntly. ‘Put him out of his misery.’
Chris pouted and said sulkily, ‘You can’t kill me. That would be murder. You’re supposed to be the good guys.’
Turning his attention back to Chris, Gears said abruptly, ‘I dunno who ya are, but ya ain’t Chris. He was a whiny little shit, not a demented freak. Ya need to leave.’
Sniggering, Chris said, ‘You’ll be dead before I am.’ In a si
ngsong voice, he warbled loudly, ‘You’re all gonna die.’
Snorting in disgust, Gears said, ‘I know you’re all telepathically linked, so I got a message for all your little friends out there. I’m sick of your shit and I’m gonna kill ya.
Chris looked alarmed as he watched Gears unbuckle his holster and take out his Beretta M9. Flicking the safety off, Gears shot Chris through the forehead.
Jumping back in surprise, Lydia said, ‘For God sake, Gears! I could have given him a lethal injection.’
‘Bullet works jus’ as well,’ Gears said dourly.
Still shaken, Lydia retorted, ‘Maybe so, but we have to clean this mess up. You do not get to walk into my CDC and shoot my test subjects through the head.’ Then, relenting, she added, ‘Although in this case, thank you. There was something very wrong with him.’
Having put his gun back in his holster, Gears surveyed the dead hunter that was once Chris and rubbing the scar on his face, he said, ‘I think the super hunter bodies can be possessed by somethin’ other than what they were. I don’t think that was Chris.’
Lydia nodded and said, ‘I agree. I don’t think that was Chris either. Chris was petty, not psychopathic.’
If it wasn’t Chris then who was it, he wondered? Who or what could have possessed Chris’s body? ‘Are you saying none of the people infected with the designer virus came out with Ip’s capabilities?’ He asked.
Shaking her head, Lydia said, ‘No, not so far, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. Four people is a very small number of people to test. We know the designer virus created Ip and Isaac so it can be successful, but we don’t know how many people it took to produce those two.’
‘If that wasn’t Chris, then what was he possessed by?’ He persisted.
‘Maybe Ip was right,’ Gears replied. ‘She saw the dead super hunter glarin’ at us after it was dead. Maybe it jus’ moved on and possessed the body of another super hunter.’