Apocalypse: The Savior with System

15 Ormara

It was only on their fourth day that they encountered zombies.

Paul who had been quite getting the hang of snuggling with Judith could not wake up early enough at dawn to smell the critters.

But they were lucky to have Rahu who, while huddled against Paul, emptied a pistol into the faces of two hungry zombies—and afterward went back to sleep.

Of course, there was no more sleeping for Paul and Judith by then. Borrowing one of Rahu’s precious carbines, Paul set out of the camp to forage for berries and non-poisonous mushrooms to eat, taking in the first few rays of the sun breaking through the foliage. He found a handful of iron and copper, too, which was a bonus.

Back at camp, he saw Judith consulting a handheld device, which turned out to be a mobile phone.

“No signal here,” she said before he could ask. “Something must be jamming the signal.”

Paul sat beside her and handed her a handful of berries and mushrooms which she began to eat. They still had one meal pack left and the two of them made a silent agreement to leave it for Rahu.

“If that’s the case, we must be close to his place now,” he said, remembering Rahu telling them about the high-level of technological and cybersecurity he installed there. They sat side by side in silence, eating until Paul couldn’t take it anymore.  He had to ask.

“I knew about what happened to you in Ormara before you came to my lab and I’m sorry,” she suddenly spoke quietly, he didn’t know so as not to wake Rahu up or because it was such a difficult topic to talk about. “I just thought you had to hear it.”

Well, well, well.

“Good morning to you, too, Doc,” he teased her, something he noticed he was also quite getting the hang of. Judith gave an unladylike grunt and chewed on a mushroom.

“Well, yeah, thanks,” he said seriously this time. “It was a long time ago.”

Judith turned to him slightly, a curious expression on her usually placid face. Paul felt like an insect under a microscope. “Did you ever want to know what really went on during your time in the lab, Captain?”

“Okay, first things first, let’s stop with the titles. I’m Paul, you’re Judith, and he’s—“ Paul jerked a thumb towards Rahu on the ground “—Rahu.” With a sigh, Paul added, “Sure, of course. I did wonder why out of a thousand quarantined soldiers and a thousand more sufferers there I was chosen to be among those to undergo the tests.”

Judith pursed her lips as if debating with herself to say something. The honest one won, he guessed, when she said, “Not among. You were the only subject…except those who failed.”

Paul stayed silent, his eyes on her profile as she looked at something he couldn’t see in the distance. Her own memories of Pakistan, probably.

“I was not the head researcher for Pearse-Sachly at the time they built the lab in Ormara,” she began. “But I worked with the team that was in charge of development for a vaccine, which also came about from a paper by a friend and colleague in the medical field. Because my superior suddenly caught the infection and had to be pulled out of the project, I was called in to replace him.”

Rahu grunted in his sleep, turned over, and continued to snore.

She continued. “The lab in Ormara was already operational for a few months when I arrived. But I didn’t know they built it right across the furnaces.” Paul looked away, trying to bury his memories of the iron fences and the heat of those ovens as he ran across a field full of armed guards to reach—

“We might be heavily involved in research for the UCL virus but we are not all told everything in detail,” she stated. “We are only required to know about the specific projects assigned to us. I admit I didn’t question much, if at all, in my early days in Ormara. One day, I get a memo to attend a meeting with other researchers on other projects. Moira Sachly-Pearse had come to Pakistan, specifically to Ormara.”

Her half-eaten mushrooms fell from her hands and she didn’t notice. Paul left it alone.

“But it was not a meeting like what I had in mind,” she said, adjusting her eyeglasses on her nose. “Professor Sachs met me…alone. She’d already met with the others at other times and apparently wanted to see me, or brief me, teach me, whatever you want to call it. She told me of a special project, one she supervises herself. It was a project that was so essential to the virus issue that Pearse-Sachly, despite their resources, needed a partnership with Knight Industries...for nanotechnology.”

At that, she gave Rahu’s back an intense stare, as if daring the sleeping behemoth to deny her.

“I’ve been wary of the partnership with a known illegal arms dealer, to be honest,” Judith admitted, again getting that faraway look in her eyes. “But even though I was disapproving, I couldn’t very well contradict Moira Sachly right away. During that one-on-one meeting, she didn’t reveal to me what the project was for, only that it was, or could, possibly be the great solution to the virus. In the world of scientific research, a solution could mean many things. Given my preoccupation, I thought she was talking about a vaccine. Since I was head of that branch of viral research, I believed that was the reason she called for me.”

Judith turned her head to look Paul in the eye. “She pulled me out of vaccine research and gave me you.”

Perhaps in another life, or another version of Paul, the statement would have sounded like a romantic confession. Coming from the scientist who implanted the system inside of him for reasons he still did not know, it was as cold a confession as the needles they plugged him with.

“Because you were a Marine, a member of the military, I thought you were a good candidate for the project,” she went on. “No family, no chances of returning to the States, already infected. “

“I’ve got nothing to lose, you mean,” Paul blurted out.

Judith gave him a regretful look. “In my defense, I was operating under the assumption that inserting a nanochip into your body was going to help the interim government’s military in keeping peace and order.”

“And you realize you were wrong?”

“I don’t know. You’re the only human being alive with the technology inside you.”

When Paul was stumped into silence, Judith said, “I never knew what solution Moira Sachly intended you to become. But when I discovered that before I even got on board she’d been testing this technology on all human beings from one end of the spectrum to the other—the normal citizens, Phases One to Fives, and those that have already gone beyond medical redemption and control—I spoke up. I disagreed. I refused.”

“So she had you packing your bags and shipped back here.”

Judith nodded. “I can’t say why I didn’t get fired after all that. I was just returned to my original post in vaccine research but I never stopped trying to find out what that project of hers was and what it was supposed to be the solution for, or what kind of a solution it was…or why it had to be in the form that can adapt to human biology, to you.”

In the next few moments of silence, Paul opened his system and gazed at the controls, at the highlighted colored buttons and those still in gray. Judith looked at the air by his arm, not seeing, only imagining what he alone could see.

“Did you have a harder time after those tests?” she asked her voice gentle. He could hear the concern and regret in her voice what he could not see on her passive face.

Paul shook his head. “Not hard like what you’re maybe imagining. I just finished everything and stayed maybe a few more months in the facility until I was transferred to a smaller one in Karachi. It was very awkward, though, when another scientist kept administering the last few tests since I expected you to walk into the room. For one, he had a heavy hand and was cruel with those needles. Second, he wasn’t at all pretty.”

Judith narrowed her eyes at him but he could see her face pinking. He was teasing her again, only because he felt he needed to, for his own sake. He didn’t want to be melancholy or to start wishing again for things that he could never have again. While having Judith Merkel around broke the monotony of traveling with Rahu, she also represented a time in his life and past that pained him very much.

It wasn’t her fault, no. Obviously, Judith has her own demons. From what she’s told him, it occurred to him that Judith was as much a victim of those in power and of circumstance as the rest of them. She’d taken care of him in Ormara and treated him with respect despite the requirements of her profession and her own misgivings. She was just doing her job and when she spoke up, she almost lost that job she loves so much.

And he lost her.

Just like Amita.

No! They’re not the same!

“If it’s all the same to you, I just want to say I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you at the end, Paul,” Judith told him while Paul was still trying to shake that last horrible thought from his mind.    

“Level update! Thermal Upgrade to Level Three. Conversion Level at stasis,” the system suddenly burst out, effectively clearing Paul’s head. At the same time, he and Judith noticed Rahu already seated and finishing the last of their meal packs, his eyes going back and forth between them.

“We’re at the edge of my land,” Rahu stated, not indicating if he heard what Judith and Paul had been talking about. Why he should feel the tips of his ears getting hot at the possibility escaped Paul. “We’ll go down this hill and head to a tunnel entrance I built in secret. We enter that way.”

“Sure! That’s a great idea!” Paul remarked too excitedly.

As they walked down the hill with Judith walking farther behind, Paul passed by Rahu, snapping, “Don’t say it!”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

Why he felt like he was itching for a fight with his friend caught Paul off guard.

Rahu only raised an eyebrow, hefted his carbine higher, and said with his usual poker-face, “Stop protesting too much, like that Shakespeare lady.”

Stunned beyond speech, Paul watched in offended silence as Rahu walked ahead.

“Bromance over?” Judith asked as she passed him, leaving him standing and staring at the two.

“Did you just make a joke?!” Paul asked aloud, laughing, and running after them. “Hallelujah, the lady can joke! Hallelujah!”

If only life was always open to jokes and laughter.

If only.