Apocalypse: The Savior with System

29 Judith's Promise

The sound of gunshots and screaming from outside made everyone run, guns held aloft, while Paul had his system panel open, ready to fire. But there were no zombies unless they’ve also learned how to drive a security van. They all watched in shock as the van hightailed it out of the compound, leaving behind four bodies on the ground.

They all ran to one who was still alive, the woman with family in Florida.

“I’m so sorry,” Eric whispered regretfully. Andie cried openly beside him.

“That sonofabitch,” the woman growled brokenly. “O-Offered to drive all…all the way t-to Flori-rida…when he’s never b-been south of W-Washing-Washington…”

Eric glanced at the other dead bodies and said, “Must be the gardener, then.”

The woman’s grip on Andie’s hand slackened and the light went from her eyes. She was dead.

Andie cried harder. Eric nodded to Eli and Eli took Andie away. Paul closed the woman’s eyes.

“We should follow him,” Paul said firmly, rising to his feet. But he suddenly felt Judith’s hand on his arm. Turning, he said, “We’ve been harboring a spy here, Judith. Who knows what he will tell whoever it is he’s spying for?”

“He’s Moira’s.”

Paul frowned. “What, you knew? How?”

“He has a barcode on his left arm,” she told them. “I know Moira. She was my senior, remember? And that man had been her former gardener before she got tired of using him for…”

“For what?”

Judith’s face turned beet red. Paul clamped his mouth shut.

Judith cleared her throat. “That barcode is like a skeleton key. It allows access to Moira Sachly’s conservatory and other places she wants you to go to.”

Paul blinked. “You wouldn’t know unless you have one, too.” He looked at her bare arms but found no tattooed barcode. “Where’s yours?”

“The day I show you mine I’ll have to kill you,” Judith deadpanned.

Rahu grunted and walked over to the dead bodies. Eric looked from Paul to Judith and decided he was much safer with the giant.

Ignoring the other two, Paul continued to grill Judith. “So you knew he could be spying for Moira, and probably Pearse, but you said nothing to me? Why? Keeping it to yourself may have resulted in their deaths!” he snapped, pointing to the dead.

To her credit, Judith looked regretful with her eyes downcast. “It did not occur to me he would actually kill to get back to Moira. I expected him to leave and only leave. Then again, I also quite forgot to expect it.”

“What do you mean?”

It was Judith’s turn to frown at him. “Paul, did you never figure out what an infected person begins to manifest in the earliest stages of the disease?”

Many things flooded Paul’s mind. Among them were memories of Amita. Too many, all of a sudden, that he was in danger of choking.

Like the week before he left for the north of Pakistan.

Unwashed dishes. Burnt food. Short tempers. Shouting matches. A fussy little boy who refused to eat anything.

He thought, until now, that those had been due to the stress of him leaving and an increase in workload on Amita’s part. Or his son was just teething.

“Disorientation, confusion, irritability, laziness, loss of emotional control. The fever is mild in the beginning and the brain is the first to suffer. They’re not yet contagious until you share their bodily fluids or get in contact with secretions. Pregnant women miscarry and children die early from intense grand mal seizures. The illness begins with violence and ends with it,” explained Judith. He felt her eyes on him and didn’t want her to know how stupid he had been…and still was.

He had not touched Amita in months, with him always away on some mission and her spending more time at her work. Yet his wife and son were already carrying the disease before he left.

To know and understand who gave who the virus was now irrelevant. His family was dead. People he loved were dead.

And he was here, alive, possibly not even human anymore with a virus and a machine occupying his body at the same time.

Loss of control.

What if he lost control? What if he forgot himself and used the system to hurt other people?

Oh my God.

“Paul? What’s wrong?” Judith suddenly asked, reaching out to him. Paul stepped back.

He saw Eric and Rahu crouched on the ground, their eyes on him.

“Paul—“ Eric began but Paul did not hear what else he said.

He turned and ran away.

Eric stood abruptly, meaning to come after his friend but Rahu blocked his way.

“Leave him be,” Rahu told him, walking over to Judith. “He needs space.”

“He was doing fine until she started talking,” Eric grumbled, pointing at Judith.

Judith frowned in confusion. Rahu grunted.

“He’s still coming to terms with what you gave him,” he spoke plainly. “Paul is afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Himself,” replied Rahu. He did not elaborate but turned to Eric instead and said, “Let’s get the bodies out of here. I’ve built a crematorium at the back. We’ll take them there.”

Without waiting for Eric to agree, Rahu carried one body towards the back of the compound. Eric shrugged, lifted another body, and followed after Rahu, leaving Judith staring in the direction where Paul ran off to.

Hours later, while Judith was walking at the back of the house, she saw Paul lying on the back porch, eyes closed, with the sun directly hitting him. She hesitated at first but later decided to sit beside him. Neither of them spoke for a long time until she broke the ice.

“I cannot say for certain what will happen to you with the system in place but I can assure you that you have long gone past the threshold for brain damage if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

Paul opened his eyes and looked at her blearily for a few seconds before sitting up.

“Maybe it’s the system itself that’s keeping you from progressing but I don’t have scientific evidence of that,” she added. “Only you.”

“Only me,” he echoed, sighing.

“Would it make you feel better if there’s someone else like you out there?” she asked.

Paul shook his head. “I’m even more afraid if that’s true.”

Judith nodded. “You should be.”

He turned to look at her, his gaze telling her to explain.

Judith pursed her lips for a moment before responding. “I didn’t know it then but I knew it after and I’ve seen it now. There is a great source of power inside you, Paul. It’s too great that those who came before you died from harnessing it. Yet you survived. Perhaps it’s genetics, perhaps luck. Whatever it is, having that system inside you allows you to be in contact with nuclear power. And it will not kill you, only make you stronger. Do you understand what that means?”

Paul only stared at her.

“To put it simply, you are a weapon that’s far stronger than anything else man has invented. And because you’re a weapon, you can be used. In fact, I admit, that had been your purpose when the project started. Imagine if there’s someone else like you out there.”

A human being who can touch and use nuclear power at will.

It was a reality too horrible to contemplate.

Judith watched him edge away from the sun.

“That’s why I need those data and files,” she told him. “I have to know what else Moira had been planning, what she kept secret from me when I started questioning and disagreeing with her methods. If she’s built another system and placed it in someone fully under her control or that of the government. And I need to know how to help you.”

“Well, if it’s going to take a long time to do that, I’ll just keep away from the sun and stop looking for those resources,” Paul suggested, settling further in the shade.

Judith shook her head. “What did I tell you? I have a theory that the system is the one thing keeping you from progressing into a zombie. If you don’t feed the system, it will eat you up faster than the virus. You will become weaker and that’s when the virus will start breaking through the barriers in your body and attack your brain.”

Paul stretched out a leg and let it bask in the sun again.

“Besides, your ability to shoot those fireballs is also a good defense against the zombies. Without it, we’d all be dead now.”

She stood and gazed down at Paul. Their eyes met and she could see his uncertainty.

“If there’s anything I can do to help you, I’d do it,” she said surely.

Paul tilted his head back to stare at her for a long time, which made Judith feel awkward.

“Just promise me one thing,” he said.

“What?”

He nodded to the gun she had in a holster at her waist. “You know the human body, right? If I lose control, shoot me where it matters.”

His request shocked her that she couldn’t speak. Paul gave her a lopsided grin.

“Don’t worry. You may not have to do it. I extracted the same promise from Rahu. And maybe later, I’ll ask the same of Eric although I think he’s going to smash that plan to pieces quickly.”

“You want me to kill you?”

“Why do you think I’ve been teaching you to shoot the past several days?” Paul rose to his haunches and stared out the back lawn. “So you’ll know what choice to make and how to make it properly. I’d rather not have holes like a sponge.”

She’d always believed there was a way to beat death. As a scientist and as a researcher, that was the one thing that kept her going. To expect to lose hope and resort to the same violence she wanted to stop…

“I’m just one man, Doc,” he said in a cheerful tone, reverting to calling her a title she no longer felt worthy of. “As long as there are still people like you searching for the cure and believing the virus can be killed, I’m not really that important. People like you are.”

Judith couldn’t find the words to speak. There was a heavy feeling in her chest, one that felt both familiar and alien. But while she could not yet understand what it was all about, she was fully sure of one thing in her mind.

Whatever happens, she was going to help this one man…

…even if she dies trying.