Zombie System: Ruling The Apocalypse

007 - More places to go

The drive to Cyclops Infirmary was largely silent.

Eleanor, however, began to speak, explaining the grim reality of their world to the five survivors huddled in the back.

She spoke of the virus and its terrifying purpose: not to kill, but to incapacitate, to transform, to render an entire population controllable.

When they pressed her on how she knew all this, she simply replied that she had "stumbled upon a podcast," a vague answer that seemed to satisfy their desperate need for understanding.

She asked for their names, and they offered them hesitantly: Sarah, Michael, Ben, Lisa, and David. Jonathan heard them, but the names seemed to slip through his numb mind like water through a sieve. He just wanted to reach the infirmary, to unravel the mysteries that now enveloped his existence.

Eleanor then dropped another bombshell. "You all carry the virus," she stated, her voice quiet but firm. "Every single person left in York Isles does. It only needs death to be activated. That's why the 'zombies' appear so quickly after someone dies."

"And for him?" Michael asked, his eyes flickering towards Jonathan in the rearview mirror.

"I don't know why he still has his brain and heart," Eleanor admitted, glancing at Jonathan. "That's why he's going to Cyclops. He's... unique."

Jonathan remained silent, his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

They arrived at Cyclops Infirmary. A sprawling complex that loomed against the desolate skyline. The sight that greeted them was chilling: medics in their pristine white uniforms, now grotesquely disfigured, their skin a pallid green, shuffled aimlessly across the grounds. They had turned.

Jonathan instinctively held Eleanor's hand, his grip firm. Eleanor, in turn, extended her other hand, and the five survivors, their faces pale with a renewed terror, clung to each other in a desperate chain.

As they moved towards the entrance, the infected medics, like the greens on the street, avoided them, veering off their paths as if repelled by an invisible force. Jonathan felt a strange, almost paternal protectiveness swell within him.

Inside, the infirmary was eerily quiet, the overhead lights still intact, casting a clinical glow on the deserted corridors. They moved cautiously, their footsteps echoing in the silence. They reached a series of labs, doors ajar, equipment overturned. Then, they spotted it: an office, its door securely locked.

"Someone might be in here," David said.

With his bat, Micheal knocked on the door.

A voice, muffled but clear, spoke from within. "I'm Doctor McStuffins. Who are you?"

"We're survivors!" Ben, one of the five, called out.

The door was unlatched, and a man in a rumpled lab coat, his eyes wide with cautious hope, peered out. His gaze swept over Eleanor, then landed on Jonathan. His eyes widened in shock, and he recoiled, scrambling back inside the office and slamming the door shut with a terrified thud.

Eleanor rushed forward. "No, wait! He's sane! He's helping us!" she pleaded, her voice urgent.

Michael, who had started to place a cautious trust in Jonathan, added his voice. "She's right, Doc! He's different. He saved us from the Greens!"

"Greens?" Doc. McStuffins asked.

"Yes," Eleanor answered. "That's what we call them now. Greens."

Still, Doc McStuffins remained unresponsive, a muffled frantic scrambling heard from within. Eleanor, exasperated, changed tactics.

"Doc! Do you know about the mutating actions of the virus? About the projects? Jonathan is that project!" Eleanor explained.

There was a beat of silence, then Doc McStuffins' voice, closer now, filled with a sudden academic curiosity. "That's rare..." The door opened slightly, revealing his face, still wary, but now tinged with scientific intrigue. "The chances are 0.00001 out of a billion." He looked past Eleanor and his gaze swept over Jonathan.

"What... is... the... cure?" Jonathan rasped, each word a slow with a painful effort.

Doc McStuffins' eyes widened, and his jaw dropped. "Oh my God... you spoke." He shook his head. "I... I don't know if there's a cure. The virus was made to spread from Cyclops, but it wasn't made here. It was made in the Capital of York Isles, Huddersworth. In the government's infirmary, the Sanctuary Research Facility."

He continued. "The miserable President funded this idea, and in the end, he was rebelled against too. This is now a power shift, between the President and Councilman Tate, who wants to be the President. Tate bought the virus in the last minute, a final, desperate gambit."

Jonathan nodded, the pieces of the puzzle fitting together with a sickening clarity. That was why the virus had been released an hour earlier. The President had set the stage, but Tate had finished the act.

"Fuck the President!" one of the group muttered.

Jonathan instinctively knew it would be unwise to reveal that Eleanor was the President's daughter. The potential for betrayal, for a desperate bargain, was too high.

Doc McStuffins pressed a button and there was an automated voice.

"What's that for?" Sarah asked.

"Network," Doc McStuffins said, still reeling from Jonathan's ability to speak, as if trying to regain some semblance of normalcy, he turned on a computer terminal.

The TV flickered to life, and the news was live, a chilling broadcast of the chaos outside. They watched, transfixed, as aerial footage showed the city, a sprawling nightmare of destruction, with greens swarming every street.

"I guess we're the only one alive?" David said.

"We thought that was it until we met you," Eleanor answered.

"Let me try something," McStuffins said, pulled out a stretcher and beckoned Jonathan onto it. He carefully drew a blood sample and looked into it through the microscope.

As he worked, the President's face suddenly appeared on the TV screen, a live broadcast. Jonathan turned to see him. He was the one. The one who wanted to kill him.

The President announced to the world that he was in search of his daughter, Eleanor Roosevelt. He offered a desperate plea, promising a space in Space for whoever found her and brought her to him.

"What? There's a Space?" Ben asked.

Doc McStuffins, without looking up from his blood sample analysis, answered flatly. "The masses, those below Level 10 in the strata, are the ones left behind. The elite, the privileged, they're already in orbit, safe from all this." He looked at the screen, a venomous expression on his face. "If I did find the President's daughter, I'd kill her."

"Same here," another from the group muttered.

Jonathan and Eleanor's eyes locked, a shared understanding passing between them. Then, a picture flashed across the screen: a clear image of Eleanor's face. All eyes in the lab, even Doc McStuffins' lingered for a while on the TV and then swiveled to her.

"What the actual fuck is going on here?" Michael growled, his hand tightening on his bat as he turned to face Eleanor.

Eleanor saw their eyes and then stepped close to Jonathan.

Jonathan surged to his feet, tearing away the belts that held him on the stretcher.

Now, Eleanor used his body as a shield, his green eyes blazing with defiance. "No... one... is... touch...ing... her," he gulped, the words thick with effort, but his intent unmistakable.

Suddenly, the unmistakable thrum of the helicopter filled the air, growing louder and closer. Then, a cacophony of gunshots erupted, tearing through the infirmary walls and shattering the glass, landing everywhere, sending debris showering down.

"Down, everybody!" Jonathan yelled.