Apocalypse: The Savior with System

40 A Knowledge Shared

All her life, Judith avoided any and all sorts of physically dangerous things. It was not her nature to be physically active, preferring books, and academic pursuits. Growing up in a quiet suburb, Judith had been surrounded by family, all of them similarly academe-inclined. Both sets of her grandparents were celebrated doctors and engineers. Her own parents were university professors until their death from the virus. Even the men she dated superficially held white-collar jobs with lofty titles they inherited and rarely earned.

Up until she started working for Pearse-Sachly, she envisioned a continuation of that suburban life, helping the practicing doctors and their patients with her education and research. She saw herself married to an equally distinguished man, with two smart children and living in a quaint house, white picket fence and all.

She was sure as hell did not see herself running away from deviant mentors and zombies, threatening to shoot other human beings, and getting lamed—or even dying—by a bullet.

Holding back a groan, Judith tried to sit up, miffed to find herself unable to even lift an arm a few inches from the bed. She could see she was in the hospital bay, saw the intravenous lines attacked to her arms, and beside her on a table, a tray laden with an array of syringes and vials.

Her eyes were still bleary from the anesthesia she could tell as she squinted up at whoever it was slowly helping her to remain still. In a few moments, she felt the bed inclining at her back, rising to elevate her to a sitting position.

“Okay, I think that’s about as high as I can get you without jostling your leg too much.”

The voice belonged to Andie and Judith slowly raised a heavy and almost numbed hand to wipe the blurriness of her eyes. After a few blinks, her vision cleared enough to see it really was Andie, currently giving her a worried frown.

“Are you in pain?”

“I can barely feel anything,” Judith croaked. She felt heavy but the heaviest part of her was down below her waist and she glanced down to see her entire left thigh, from upper thigh to knee encased in thick white bandages. The upper half of the limb looked like a giant bolster pillow.

“Eric thought it best to keep you on heavy pain medication while the wound was still fresh,” explained Andie. “You just finished the last bag of blood a few hours ago.”

Apparently, she needed a transfusion. “It was that bad?”

Andie grimaced. “It was. You bled all over the place and lost a lot of blood. You drenched Paul with it.”

Judith recalled seeing Paul’s face just before she lost consciousness. “Yes, I think I remember him carrying me.”

At that moment, Eric appeared with a bright smile on his face as he approached Judith. He exchanged a few words with Andie Judith could not hear and then Andie left. Eric sat on a chair beside the bed and said, “I can’t say you look well but definitely not worse. We had to give you four bags of blood and heavy pain medications that’s why you feel heavy.”

Judith gave him a wan smile. “You saved my life. Thank you, Eric.”

Eric shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I? You saved Paul.”

Judith opened her mouth to speak when Eric’s smile disappeared as he told her, “Had the bullet entered your leg a centimeter higher, you wouldn’t be here talking to me, Judith. That was a reckless move. We’re all grateful for what you did but it was really—“

“Stupid, I know,” she said slowly, closing her eyes against the dull pain in her thigh. “But I don’t regret what I did. Paul is too important to die now.”

“Important to whom and why?”

She opened her eyes and met Eric’s suspicious gaze. “To all of us. To the world.”

After a moment, she added, “Paul is not getting sicker, did you notice? He’s not progressing while Rahu is. The serum, or what’s left of it, is delaying progression but it won’t prevent Rahu advancing to the next stage of the disease in time. But Paul…he doesn’t need the serum.”

Eric frowned. “Are you saying Paul is immune or whatever?”

Judith shook her head. “He’s not immune. Rather, if my theory and what I’ve taken from the Pearse-Sachly archives and the server lab here are correct, Paul has something inside him that’s placed the virions in his bloodstream at a standstill.”

When Eric continued to look at her curiously, Judith decided she should at least tell someone about her findings…about what she knew.

“The system inside Paul, I placed it there back when he was detained in Ormara.” Eric nodded. He knew that much. “It was—is—nanotechnology. A hybridized form that another research team developed. That team was personally seen to by Moira Sachly, a former mentor.”

“Former?”

Judith felt Eric did not need to know the personal reasons why she broke ties with Moira Sachly. She knew why Moira tasked her with the project in Ormara and nobody else needed to that either. So she ignored his question and plodded on. “You know how Phase Fives, the zombies, burn easily after getting doused in saltwater? For lack of a better term, their flesh gets marinated. The salt reacts with the virions in their flesh, making it flammable. You don’t see it until you apply fire to them. In that compound of sodium chloride, viral DNA, and human DNA, the flesh becomes desiccated, drying from the inside out. They become like kindling.”

“And what has that got to do with the nanotech inside Paul?” asked Eric, drawing his seat closer to the bed. She internally debated whether to continue telling Eric more but thought that if he managed to become a good enough medic and saved her life, he just might understand enough of scientific jargon. Better him than Rahu, even if Rahu knew more about nanotech—well, it was his nanotech inside Paul’s body. But while Rahu had not done her or anybody else in their motley crew harm, she was still wary about him.

“The nanotech acts in two ways: one, it binds to individual virions the same way our immune cells do with receptors to antigens. By doing so, it renders the virion immobile and inactive. Not killed, only paralyzed, in order for the second function of the nanotech to work.”

“Which is?”

“Once the nanotech binds or chains to itself a virion, another channel within the virion is opened, drawing sodium chloride in, like a sponge. That results in a compound visible under an electron microscope, a new kind of organism. But it’s not just the sodium chloride that Paul’s body—or the nanotech—needs to keep working. He needs other resources and elements too, like silicon, iron, and others. Our body has all those, too, but only in physiologic amounts, levels necessary just to survive. Their usual levels are not enough to sustain the nanotech and without those tons of external resources, the nanotech will consume Paul’s body from the inside out.”

Eric stood and adjusted the drip speed then sat down again. “But how does Paul create that fire thing?”

Judith inhaled deeply, both to gather her thoughts and to wall herself against the pain in her thigh. She did not want to be under all that pain medication any longer. At this point in time, she needed all her wits about her.

“That’s the tricky part. None of the other test subjects for the project were able to do what Paul can base on the reports I’ve read,” she replied. “Simply put, their bodies were not able to withstand the nanotech and its various effects. None of those effects affected Paul in any detrimental or damaging way. He passed all the tests and using the system’s firepower did not immediately kill him. Again, even that needs a resource for thermal energy. That bit is like a vitamin or a specific enzyme the nanotech needs to work for its ultimate purpose.”

Eric raised his eyebrows in question while going to a tray to retrieve a pre-filled syringe and stabbing it into a feeder port into her IV line. “Sorry, Judith. You’re looking very pale to me right now and your hands are clammy. You’re in pain. We can talk again about this when you’re more awake and less in pain but for now…”

“Destruction,” Judith blurted out, cutting him off. “That’s what all that firepower is for.” Judith sighed, closing her eyes again, feeling less alone with the knowledge yet also more burdened. Eric’s cold silence told her he did not like that answer.

“So, Paul is not getting any sicker because the virions are ineffective with the nanotech around, like a microscopic magnet,” said Eric to which Judith nodded. “But he needs to take up all these metal and thermal resources to keep his body from succumbing to the process.” Again, Judith nodded.

“Can a serum from him be used for a vaccine or something?”

Ah, now Eric asked the most essential question of all.

“That nanotech was never meant to become a health project, Eric. Like I said, the nanotech’s ultimate purpose is for destruction. It is a weapon, not a means to cure the world of the UCL Virus.”

“A weapon? A weapon against what?”

Eyes closed, Judith managed to lift an eyebrow. “What do you think?”

The two of them were silent for a long time until she spoke again. “I don’t know to what end will the technology be used or how far they’re willing to go to end the pandemic.”

“Killing all the zombies in the world isn’t going to stop it!” Eric exclaimed, no doubt in frustration. She was the same way when she realized this minus the exclamation.

“Exactly. We can now only theorize at what level they intend to use this technology. Eric—” Judith fought to keep her eyes open, wide enough to convey her thoughts and feelings on the matter should she suddenly drop off to a medication-induced sleep he was obviously giving her “—that’s why I jumped. We have to protect Paul. Paul cannot fall into the hands of either Pearse or Morgan. I can re…research on the serum…but I need other minds…other disciplines…can’t do it al—alone…need Sand…Sandhurst…”

She was getting sleepier, the words in her mind all became a jumbled mess, and her last memory before darkness descended was the coldly beautiful features of Quinn Vega’s face at the doorway.