Surviving the Apocalypse

Second Message

With only a few weeks left until the first storm blasted the city with winter, Hanna had her Camp as well as the rest of the Alliance focus all of their efforts on preparing as best they could. Thanks to the drones, each of the 20 Camps was as prepared as they could be, each of them quickly working to get the earth and plant abilities upgraded to the point that they would be able to support themselves in the event the drones were unable to operate for long periods of time.

Fortunately it was a goal that each Camp in the Alliance knew was absolutely critical for their survival, as most of them were isolated to the point that they may not be able to secure connections even along the perimeter the next year. The valley they occupied was massive, the outer diameter over 250 miles that had to be secured in order for all of the Camps to be connected in a way that would allow them to support one another in a meaningful way. The fact that most of them were beyond the perimeter in whatever natural protective barriers they could utilize adding to the complexity. The only exception to this rule was Team 1 of Camp Hope as well as their best construction crew that was no filled with level 5 earth ability users that could erect a mile of walls each per day.

The servers from the Ascension Lab proved to be far more secure than they had anticipated, Nathaniel and his team taking an entire week to c***k the encryption that allowed them to access the drive. Once he did however, Hanna almost immediately found the file she needed as he came into her office.

“I don’t know what your dad did, but even the AI says it would take a century if brute force attacks to decrypt that section of the database. Everything else is already decrypted and being examined by Dr. Harrington and his people.” He said as he sat down in the chair across from her.

“Fortunately I know the decryption key for this. My father however isn’t the one who designed this encryption, I am. The reason it is so difficult is because it is a 1024 bit encryption with 5 different keys, each one having 3 variables for each character and a randomizer to ensure that it is as secure as possible. Add to that the keys can be fully customized by the person encrypting the data, it makes it next to impossible to decrypt successfully without the pass phrase that unlocks the embedded decryption keys needed to decode the data.” She told him as she entered the password to unlock everything inside the file.

“How in the hell did you come up with that?” he asked making her smile.

“Secure Communications class in the Academy. We had to design an encryption program in the event that current encryptions failed, grades based on the ability to survive a brute force attack from a computer that makes our current servers look like a child’s toy. The military was supposed to prepare the network for its use by this time, the apocalypse ending that plan. Had it waited 6 months it would have been fully implemented, which would have meant we would be screwed trying to decrypt the military servers we encounter out here.” She told him before she opened the video file.

‘Junebug, hopefully if anyone else finds this file, it will be far too late for them to do anything about it when they manage to decrypt it. Your program works like a dream, it quickly becoming the most useful tool in my arsenal. That however is for another time, as you need to know what I have discovered this far. With any luck, you haven’t had to use the ability I have you much, as I honestly don’t know if Paxton will be able to sense your resets.

‘The Second Dawn has been working towards this goal for 4 years, believing that it is the solution to force humanity to evolve beyond our current limitations. They believe it is the zombie virus that causes the abilities to manifest, as the virus that does do that was discovered at nearly the same time. The two are companion viruses, the abilities infecting the host first, weakening the immune system just enough that the necrotic portion of the zombie virus can take hold. Unfortunately they don’t realize this, and if they do they have been unable to isolate it as all their samples come from the test subjects the military has created.

‘To that end I have included the genome mapping of both of these viruses, hoping that you have someone capable of understanding what they are looking at. My recommendation would be Doctor Harrington, the foremost expert in viral epidemiology in the entire world. If anyone can c***k it, it would be him. This however will not be a fast process, even if he has his entire team and unlimited resources to do the research.

‘Even after 5 years of me using every expert I can locate, we are no closer to beginning to even understand how these viruses work together, let alone how they function apart. The good news is, while the one that gives the abilities is airborne, the zombie virus requires fluid transfers. Scratches from zombies are generally infectious as well, as they have no self preservation instinct. They are prone to injuries, as well as feasting on the flesh of newly infected hosts, covering their hands in the very fluids that the virus requires to survive. Normally I would say kill as many as possible, but it would be an impossible task. So I will only tell you to kill the ones you must in order to obtain the data I have left for you, in the hopes you will be able to use it to stop this from ever happening.

‘I wish I could tell you what is going to happen, but it changes with each reset, and I have lost track of how many of them I have even been through. Unfortunately it seems the limit of this ability is two years prior to the apocalypse occurring, as I haven’t been able to go back further than that. Because of this limitation, it seems impossible to go back far enough to prevent this virus from ever being found, let alone allowing the military to conduct the experiments on it in the reckless manner in which they did. The only hope for humanity is to develop a vaccine by whatever means possible, and returning to the past with it far enough back that we can distribute it to the entire populace before this thing has the ability to end the world we knew.

‘I wish I could help you in this endeavor, but it must rest upon your shoulders until everything is in place for you to come back far enough to do what I wish I had been able to help you do. Get the data, find the vaccine. It is the only hope we have as Paxton and the Second Dawn are hell bent on forcing humanity to evolve. One way or another. Good luck Junebug.’ Marcus Storm said before the video ended and showed the next set of data they needed to advance the work on the vaccine. Work that was clearly done well before the apocalypse, her father using every asset he could that was apparently outside of the control of the group he kept warning her about.

The data that was included in it this time was all about the Second Dawn, their facilities, personnel and what he had discovered about their operations. She was surprised that in this part of the world, they had absolutely nothing in the way of facilities or personnel. Especially because it was a resource rich area that would allow them to restart a human civilization once they managed to clear the zombies from the entirety of the valley. Hanna smiled as Lucas and the rest of the Camp leadership entered her office, this meeting even more closed door than their regular conferences because of the nature of the data they were looking at. She has no idea how widespread this group was and she wasn’t taking any risks that this information could get out.

“So, what do we do about them?” Lucas asked after they went through the data for the first time.

“For now, nothing. We won’t do anything that jeopardizes our situation here to pursue a mysterious organization we know next to nothing about. After we secure the metropolitan area here, we will make a decision about next steps. Graham, what is the status of the plows?” she asked the mechanic they had rescued from the city equipment depot.

“We have 3 of them finished to deal with both the snow and any zombies that get in the way. The machinery has been upgraded and reinforced so that it will cut through bone as easily as it does ice.” Graham replied. “Give me three more weeks and we should have all 8 of them ready to roll. Fuel however is going to be an issue, even with the stockpile we have here.”

“What are we going to do about the Second Dawn?” Peter asked the group at large.

“For now there isn’t anything we can do.” Hanna replied knowing they didn’t have enough data about them or manpower to actually do anything.

“If what we know so far is accurate, these are the people that caused the end of the world as we knew it. You expect us to do nothing?” James asked making Hanna glare at him.

“I didn’t say we would do nothing about them, and as far as what they did? This is the same group that forced my father to commit suicide just to prevent him from gathering the data we do have and stopping it from happening in the first place. We however must prioritize for now, our first priority is and must be surviving long enough so we can do something about it. What I am saying, is that over time we will bring an end to them. When we are ready to do so without risking what little good of humanity has survived.” She told them as they all nodded.

“Everyone, you must consider what we are up against.” Lucas said pulling up the military file on General Kenneth Paxton. “This isn’t a man you just walk up to and challenge. He commanded 10 bases and 200,000 men before the fall, and we must assume most if not all of those men have survived and are part of the Second Dawn. That won’t include the corporate people that have their own men and facilities that will be part of the operation, not to mention satellite offices like General Storm created when he made his own Camps for survivors. We have to consider every aspect of what we are doing, and prepare accordingly.”

Hanna smiled as she looked at him, and highlighted the next closest lab where her father had hidden the data. Right next to it was a full fledged airbase equipped with helicopters and jets. “On that front, this will be our next targets. The lab is one of the labs where my father hid the data we need, located right next to an airbase that will improve our own security and capabilities when the time comes. We are not just fighting for survival, we must equip ourselves with the knowledge and tools necessary to even begin fighting a war that none of us knew was even happening 6 months ago. We need to remember there are no quick fixes or shortcuts we can take. This mission could take years if not decades to execute properly. Even if the world hadn’t collapsed and we could call on the collective expertise of it, in 6 years they barely scratched the surface of a treatment that could prevent the transformation into zombies. With our limited resources and manpower, it could take us 10 times as long to be ready.”

“In the meantime, we lose more and more people to the blasted zombies. People that shouldn’t have to perish in a war they don’t even know is being waged.” Peter said dejectedly.

“We know Peter, but we can only do so much.” Lucas said to him.

Hanna sighed as she stood up and looked at them while she paced. “Each if you knows that I possess knowledge that seems like I can somehow see into the future. No one has asked how I obtained it, but most of you have come to accept that it is accurate.” She began as they agreed with her. Especially the ones who had been with her when the apocalypse began. “So, I will tell you how I obtained it. Not through visions, not through prophecies that can’t be corroborated or verified, but through experience. I have this knowledge because of an ability that my father possessed and managed to pass to me as part of his own plan. Not to survive this nightmare, but to prevent it from ever happening in the first place. It is an ability called temporal reset. When I die, so long as it is not caused by my own hand just to end it, I return to a time before the apocalypse ever happened. This time, 28 days prior to the outbreak that caused this nightmare.

“Our ultimate goal has nothing to do about surviving this nightmare, or avenging those who have fallen. It is to go back and prevent it from ever happening in the first place. To do that, we need a vaccine that prevents the infection from taking hold and turning people into zombies. Only than will we be able to stop this atrocity and bring justice to those who would see our world end for whatever their objective is. That is why we must survive, why we must learn, and adapt to whatever is to come. No matter how many times we must endure this nightmare. No matter how long it drags on, because in the end, our battlefield is in the past. Not the present, not the future, but the world we lost and must do whatever it takes to ensure that it doesn’t collapse.” She told them before she played the messages her father had left her.