by Arthur Stone
“Just one more thing. If you jabbed yourself with this, how would you chase after those zombies on one leg?”
“My leg is still attached, and that’s what matters. Spec isn’t really a drug. It’s a special tool the System uses. And if the Machine decides you can run on broken legs, run you will.”
“I’m starting to be afraid of this ‘System.’”
“Just starting? We’re all afraid of the System. Deathly afraid.”
* * *
The ghouls got their chance after a couple of hours of water travel. It wasn’t that any of their attempts to enter the water succeeded. Not at all.
The river was changing, as Kitty had anticipated. Each cluster boundary was shocking, even when he wasn’t looking at one bank or the other. Sharp jolts or quick changes in the shape of the creek always gave it away. Sometimes he had to hurry through with the oars, rushing through the narrow stretches where the strongest infected could possibly leap clear into the boat, or at least land dangerously close in the water. Otherwise, everything continued as normal. The lazy current, or sometimes no current. The hot, sunny day. The deciduous forests running along both sides. There were very few traces of human activity—just a few campfire sites, fishing piers, and plastic garbage sometimes floating underneath the occasional stretch of power lines.
But danger awaited them up ahead. Steep banks squeezed the river in again, their rocks striped with algae, showing where the water line had once been. The level of the water was lower now, for some reason. Above them, a pair of impressive pylons supported a major bridge made of metal and reinforced concrete. The road that ran along it must have been an important way, and when the reset occurred, so had a grand accident. Or a whole string of accidents.
As a result, the bridge was cluttered with a monolithic mass of twisted, burnt metal. Some of them were little thicker than pancakes, so the true culprit was clear: a rusted tanker had lost its grip and slid, then rolled across like bridge like a giant rolling pin, crushing vehicles like spent soda cans. It was probably too heavy for this bridge: Some combination of the truck’s weight and the damage to the bridge inflicted by it or the reset had blasted a hole clean through. Through it, Rocky could see scattered piles of bones being picked at lazily by a family of overweight crows.
The main attraction, though, was the infecteds. The dead were lackluster in their pursuit, sometimes stopping and turning to leave, but the noise of the remaining horde attracted others. For such a subdued sound, the creatures’ rumbling carried surprisingly far. In this way, the total number of infecteds on both banks fluctuated between thirty and forty, usually not much higher or lower.
Now, this mass of monster, increasingly frustrated at their inability to reach the boat, found that there was a way to walk over the traveler’s heads. Not all of them took advantage of this chance at a good snack. The bulk was made up of low-level ghouls, and they didn’t have enough mental capacity for even the simplest of plans. But one beast a little deadlier than the others—and almost as strong as the one which had impressed Rocky into the farm mud—realized the situation and charged up the bridge, its intentions obvious.
A pair of others, more modest but also dangerous, watched the leader run to its perch and followed, realizing what it was up to. The movements they made were not unnoticed across the stream. Four of the opposing team hurried to the bridge, as well.
Rocky had become quite comfortable with controlling the boat, in his opinion. “They’ll make it to the bridge before us. Should we turn around?”
“Why would we push against the current just to return to where we were? Shoot them.”
“Only twenty-six cartridges left.”
“And seven infecteds we have to mow down quickly. The rest aren’t a threat. They only realize things when it’s too late. We’ll be under and gone by then. You can take the ones on the bridge out.”
It wasn’t a perfect session. Rocky spent nine shots on the sever beasts. One he simply missed, and another hit but didn’t kill the ghoul. The others weren’t clean kills, either. He only took out four, just hobbling or slowing down the rest. With limitless ammo, he would have finished them off, but now he had to abandon his attack, thankful that they couldn’t get above them in time now. The shots had slowed them down, enough for the dumbest monsters to catch up.
They were starting to catch on, too, abandoning all other plans in a bid to get on top of the bridge. Some even managed to reach the center above them in time, but the burnt-out cars slowed them down. Even fast infecteds couldn’t ignore huge piles of twisted metal.
Now, why had Rocky shot so poorly? Because his ability was not all-powerful. He had missed a number of times back near the sandy hill, after all. The boat was rocking and swaying. He was having trouble holding the heavy rifle, and he could neither sit nor lie down, and the targets were not so close, in fact. The ghouls moved quickly, and not always predictably.
In the future, he should remember that conditions other than shooting galleries would reveal that he was not, in fact, a perfect sniper. A depressing discovery. Now he only had seventeen shots left, and their adventures were only going to become crazier from here on out.
* * *
Once they had passed the bridge, the terrain underwent a phenomenal change. The forests retreated, their trees now only residing on sparse islets in the middle of the river. The land around was pasture, nibbled down by domesticated livestock, who in turn had been nibbled down to skeletal form, in which they still resided here. To the right, beyond the pasture, a town immersed in green sat about five hundred feet away. A highway on a tall embankment ran past it. It had a few vehicles on it—lone cars here and there, permanently parked.
The most significant change was the river. It suddenly widened into a large lake. The transition was lined with severed power lines and a fishing bridge sawn in half. We’re in another cluster.
Kitty had mentioned a popular—and hotly contested—hypothesis the day before. Immunes often encountered places they remembered. Places they had seen before they were brought to this world. That meant the System did not create clusters from scratch. It copied pieces of real-world territory, somehow playing a cosmic Tetris game to integrate them into its mosaic, its hive of humanity.
Here, the System had been unable to find a patch of land with a similar river or canal that matched up in the other necessary places. But, as Kitty had explained, the Machine governing this world of curiosities was not opposed to using lakes for this purpose, especially if they were long lakes.
This particular body of water was more round, but perhaps the angle was just odd, or the oddities of the shorelines just made the cosmic Tetris game more difficult.
The girl, habitually pulling at the strips of cloth holding her crippled leg, looked around. “This is a good lake. We’ll lose all the ghouls here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. They hate wide expanses of water. As soon as we push off into the middle, they’ll forget we exist.”
“That’s convenient.”
“Don’t assume you can also bank on it, though. The strongest infecteds can still get to you.”
“But there aren’t any of them around.” Rocky squinted at the shore fleeing into the distance. The monsters really were beginning to lose interest.
“Just because you don’t see any doesn’t mean a thing. Some infecteds are so cunning that I wouldn’t even notice them until they had me in their jaws. An elite isn’t just a better version of what you fought in the town. An elite is a threat to respect.”
Rocky nodded. “This lake is fine, but there aren’t any islands.”
“Who cares?”
“What do you mean? Don’t you remember what you told me back there?”
“I told you a lot of things.”
“You said we could camp out on the island for a day or so. We have plenty of sporejuice and a couple of ration packs, so we’d be fine.”
Kitty pointed forward and a bit to the right.
&nb
sp; “Row that way. Towards that dam.”
“Which is massive. Look at that spillway! The river flows straight through, so I have no idea how we can hope to pass by boat.”
“We’ll have to abandon the boat.”
“So I can drag you around on my shoulders again?” Rocky sighed in sadness. “How about we try to drag the boat around the dam?”
“It’s pretty big. I couldn’t even do it, and you’re weaker than I am.”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“Rocky, just forget that you’re this muscular tall guy, while I’m a ninety-pound thing that looks like little more than a naive schoolgirl. This is a different world. Other laws reign here, and sometimes, what your eyes tell you means nothing. Your Strength is up to three. Even with your initial data, you’re far behind me.”
“What do you mean, ‘even with my initial data’?”
“That’s simple enough. We’re not dolls. We’re still real people. We have our own advantages and disadvantages. If you’re here as a weightlifter, each Strength point will mean as much to you as one point means to me. If not more. That’s how it is with all the stats. They’re not absolute—they’re relative to what you started with. There are some exceptions, but they’re pretty rare. You’re a cheater, so you get an accidental, immense bonus to your Accuracy. Those who started out as Olympic shooters won’t be able to keep up, since your Accuracy increases faster than theirs.”
“So what if I lift weights here? Will the benefits be much better than they would be in the real world? Meaning I’d be much stronger?”
“Actually, yes. As long as you were pumping your Strength, too. Which requires fighting, not lifting weights.”
“Yeah, I get that. Strength seems easy to pump. It went up quickly when I took out these young ghouls trying to rip me off a railroad.”
“What did you kill them with?”
“Some kind of metal bar.”
“You did that by hand against slow-moving opponents. Physical strength did most of the work, so yeah, you got points towards it. It doesn’t always work this way, but the System as a rule awards the stat that played a role in the battle. It won’t give you many points for tiny teensy accomplishments, too. Pumping your Strength like that will only work at the lower levels. When your stat’s level is above the opponent’s level, the System adds penalties. The greater the difference, the higher the penalties, until you only get one progress point per victory. One is the minimum, per the rules. So to pump your Strength from fourteen to fifteen, you’ll have to kill one hundred and fifty tiny infecteds with your pipe. To get from nineteen to twenty, kill two hundred. Those are ideal numbers, of course. And no one hits the ideal. The System will award you those points for Accuracy and so on at times, so you’ll have to swing that pipe hundreds more times. Where will you find hundreds of the little guys, anyway? They’re not about to line up and present themselves. And where hordes of them roam, much worse things roam, too.”
“Sounds like a lot of work.”
“You can get a good bump from high-level infecteds, but a pipe won’t help you out then. You’ll need a bigger weapon, and the good options don’t really rely on Strength. They rely on Accuracy and so on. Hey, look, the monsters are pretty much out of sight. Keep rowing. That dam in an interesting place, and we can look in that little house, too.”
“Look for what?”
“Well, we can try to rest there, if things look good.”
“It’s not a house, though. It’s a control room or something. Maybe a generator room.”
“Look in the corner. The glass is glazed to give the inside privacy from people outside. It’s probably good to live in, and the location is great. The only ways to reach it are up this bank, or along the dam. The edge of the lake is clear, and the dam is five hundred feet long, at least. Nothing will be able to approach us without being noticed. I don’t see any pastures or towns on this side of the water. So honestly, it looks like a comfortable place to take a short rest.”
“Are you sure Romeo won’t find us? We haven’t gone very far yet.”
“He’s cunning, and persistent. We can never be sure. He’s unpredictable, too. But I need to rest, Rocky. A day, at least. Maybe too. Then I’ll be able to hobble along on my own, and that will really help our situation.”
Rocky pointed left. “Look at that. Something off in the distance. Skyscrapers?”
“Yeah. Pretty tall.”
“That’s a city.”
“It’s certainly no village.”
“You said that cities were extremely dangerous.”
“Sure, but it’s at least six miles away.”
“Are you sure? Looks like less to me.”
“Who cares? It’s very unlikely that it just came in, in which case the infecteds don’t care about it anymore. The first day it comes in is the worst. They charge in from all directions when they smell a reboot. You could be in a tank and it wouldn’t matter: Running into a city horde is a guaranteed death sentence. But I don’t see any better shelter, Rocky. If we go farther to look for some, with me on your shoulders again, we’ll just be risking more encounters. Or are you hurting for adventure? You should quit arguing with me all the time and just listen to what I say.”
“I wasn’t arguing. Just saying that cities are dangerous.”
“Oh, as if I didn’t know that. Look, it’s far away, and this is a good spot. We stay here. So get rowing, and quit looking at me like that. You can put up with me for a couple of more days.”
“A couple of more days?”
“Yeah. After that, you go on your own, without me.”
“But why?”
“Because we are going to part. I told you right at the start that this would happen, remember?”
“You must be joking. You can hardly crawl.”
“Sure, but in a couple of days that will change. I’m tenacious enough to kick any wound right back out the door. Don’t worry about your own welfare. I’ll help you get to a stable, like I promised. But then, that’s it.”
“What if it’s not?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I might come in handy. We worked well together, and even got along.”
“We will not stay together.”
“Why so certain?”
“I might look like a naive little girl, Rocky, but I understand a thing or two about life, believe it or not. You keep looking at me like that. Stop it. Cast those thoughts from your mind. There’s not going to be any romance between us. We’re splitting up in two days. Get that in your head. And take this thing left a little—there are some branches sticking out of the water up ahead that we don’t want to hit.”
Chapter 25
Life Five: Stupidly in Love
Rocky froze in front of the metal door, which was slightly opened and held a signboard with the word “Shield” on it and the image of a skull with its eye sockets skewered by bolts of lightning. There was no sound from within, but the smell made his hands instinctively tighten their grip on his rifle. It wasn’t even that strong, but it was impossible to confuse with anything else.
It was the stench of decomposition.
The infecteds were often referred to as “ghouls,” but that was just as far from the truth as “zombie.” They weren’t rotting. They were alive, or at least as alive as digis can be. Sometimes a serious injury might cut off blood supply to a limb and cause it to rot, but that wouldn’t last for long. Even the monsters just starting out regenerated quickly—especially with food available.
So rotting flesh didn’t usually mean rumbling fiends. But the scent could certainly attract them, so relaxing would be foolish. To them, it was an alluring incense, not a stench. None of the monsters were picky. They would eat carrion if there was nothing better available. Meaning there was, in fact, a small chance that one or more infecteds was residing behind this door. Rocky made no hurry to open it. Perhaps a beast lurking on the other side was also listening to them, ready to punch clean throug
h the wall with its razor-sharp claws. It was better to wait a little. The ghouls usually proved impatient, so Rocky was content to let any beast come out, or at least reveal its presence.
Three minutes passed without Rocky hearing a sound, save the buzzing of a gluttonous fly. Rocky gave in, pushing the tip of his rifle up against the door. It didn’t budge. He readied his weapon to use as a lever, but reconsidered. Bending or snapping some piece of his gun was the last thing he needed. It was strong, but it wasn’t made to be used as a crowbar.
In any case, though, he had already made some noise, and no monsters were emerging. He had nothing to fear. Probably.
He grabbed the door and pulled it open. It let out a hideous screech, which was doubtless audible in every dark corner of the building. Which was very large. Rocky had no idea what the purpose of all this space was. A concrete dam didn’t need an airport. Indeed, a low windowed tower nearby looked like it had been brought here from an airport. But he didn’t particularly care to find out. How would that knowledge even help him? One thing was clear. Kitty was right. This was a good place to set up camp for a while.
A narrow hallway stretched into the building, its walls bare but for damp spots saturated with mold. His flashlight revealed a similar door thirty feet down. It seemed to be closed. He approached, rapped on its metal with his knuckles, and listened. Nothing seemed to react on the other side, so he pushed on.
This door was much more compliant than the last, but his joy died as he realized that the further it opened, the worse the smell became. When he stopped just outside of a room too big for his flashlight to illuminated, he cursed quietly. The stench was so thick that he could probably butter toast with it. Nausea greeted him. He was surprised it hadn’t until now. He turned his light, saw something, and jerked his rifle up to point at it.