“At least I got to see you one last time,” Haroon says to her. “My beautiful Nemy…”
The woman bends down to him.
“My name isn’t Nemy,” she says. “It’s Nemesis.”
Then she rips her sword out of his chest, taking his insides out with it.
Scavy and Junko wake in an office on the upper floor of the white-bricked castle. The morning sun shines through on Scavy’s face. His yellow mohawk mostly flat to one side of his head. He didn’t get much sleep during the night. All the screaming and moaning from the zombie crowds outside kept him awake. Junko on the other hand slept like a baby. Curled up under the desk, snoring loudly for hours. He’s surprised her snoring didn’t attract the zombies outside.
When Junko stands up, she stretches and smile-yawns, as if she just had the best night of sleep in her life.
“How were you able to sleep like that?” Scavy asks.
“Practice,” she says. “I slept on the streets of Copper every night until I was capable of sleeping pretty much anywhere, even in the most dangerous sides of town. Contestants rarely get sleep in the Red Zone. Lack of sleep often gets people killed, especially on the third day.”
“Good thing for me we don’t have to worry about a third day anymore,” Scavy says.
“Don’t feel so lucky. It’s going to be damn near impossible to get to the helicopter before those merc punks unless we find some transportation.”
“What kind of transportation can we get out here? Bicycles?”
“Probably not even that. Skateboards maybe, but they would be useless on the street out there even if we knew how to ride them.”
Scavy doesn’t even know what a skateboard is.
“So what do we do?” he asks.
“Get lucky,” she says.
Outside the window, zombies roam the streets. The thickest section of the horde is just below the fire escape they had entered the office from.
“There’s too many of them out there,” Junko says. “We need to find another way out.”
Running down the street, they see a familiar face. Rainbow Cat is dodging through the lumbering corpses, determined to get through to the end.
“Isn’t that the hippy chick?” Scavy asks.
Junko examines her carefully. There is a blood-drenched bandage around her neck, but other than that she looks fine. “How is she still alive?”
As Rainbow moves into the middle of the street, she gets surrounded on all sides. The zombies close in on her. One of them grabs her by the dreadlocks from behind and rips her back.
“Well, she’s not going to be alive for much longer,” Junko says.
Rainbow Cat spins around and flips the zombie over her head. She whips out her machete and severs her captive dreadlock in midair. Then she hacks off another’s arm and then one of their heads. She leg-sweeps three of them, then cartwheels out of the center of the mob.
“Whoa, shit,” Scavy says, smiling. “When’d she get so tough?”
Junko shakes her head. “I knew the bitch wasn’t to be trusted. She probably wanted us to think she was a helpless weak little girl this whole time, so we wouldn’t see it coming once we got to the helicopter.”
A zombie pukes in Rainbow’s direction, but she kicks another corpse into its way to block the green toxic spew.
“Rainbow!” Junko yells to her from the fire escape. “Over here!”
Rainbow looks up and sees them. She gives them a one-minute signal with her finger, then roundhouse kicks the puking zombie over a fire hydrant.
“Meet us on the other side of this building,” Junko yells.
“I’ll be there,” Rainbow says.
Many of the zombies break away from the horde and go for Scavy and Junko. They crowd against the wall, but can’t reach the ladder to the fire escape.
Scavy looks over at Junko. “I thought she wasn’t to be trusted?”
“Yeah, but we need all the help we can get. At least we know where we stand now.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just don’t turn your back on her.”
Junko watches Rainbow carefully as the hippy expertly dispatches zombie after zombie. She wonders if she’s made the right decision letting her come with them. That machete she’s carrying is new. Junko thinks she had to have gotten it from another contestant, mostly likely stealing it or killing the person in order to get it. Although Rainbow will be useful on their trek through zombie country, Junko’s going to have to figure out a way to ditch her before they get to the helicopter.
Scavy and Junko get their equipment together, arm themselves, and prepare to leave the barricaded room. They had not entered through the castle-shaped building, so they have no idea what is in store for them.
“What was this place, anyway?” Scavy asks.
Junko looks at the yellowed papers on the wall and desk. “I believe it’s some kind of indoor theme park, designed to look like a castle from the Middle Ages.”
Scavy doesn’t understand theme parks or the Middle Ages.
“You know, knights, castles, armor, kings, jousting, swords.”
Scavy nods. He understands most of those words.
They remove the cabinets blocking the door and enter the hallway. Much of this area is dark, but the end of the hall is illuminated with sunlight. Junko leads them in that direction. When they turn the corner, they enter a glass bridge overlooking a courtyard. Below them they see a Medieval-themed miniature golf course. At the end of the course, on a platform, they see a large vehicle. It is a hand-built flying device, which looks like some kind of bicycle-powered hang glider.
“What the hell is that?” Scavy asks.
Junko puts her hand on the glass and stares solidly at the flying machine.
“I don’t know. But I think it might be exactly what we needed.”
A man steps out from behind the flying machine, carrying a wrench and spool of wire. He’s short, malnourished, and disheveled. His black slacks are brown in the knees. His white button-up dress shirt is ripped up, missing buttons, and covered in grease. His tie is covered in cigarette-burned holes.
“I guess another contestant beat us to it,” Scavy says.
The small man wipes the sweat from his brow, then exchanges tools from a toolbox and gets back to work.
“I don’t think he beat us to it,” she says, shaking her head. “I think he built that thing.”
Oro was a genius, or at least that’s what he called himself. His father owned the only tobacco farm in Copper. Due to this, his family was one of the most wealthy in the quadrant. Oro, the runt of his father’s children, did not want to grow up to be a tobacco farmer like his large older brothers. He had bigger things in mind.
“I am a genius,” he would tell his father. “I am not suitable for the life of a mere laborer.”
This was always his excuse to get out of doing chores. He was above hard work. He wanted to put his brilliant brain to work on greater things. He didn’t have time to waste on his father’s business.
“You’re a citizen of Copper,” his father would say. “The life you have now is the best you’re ever going to get here.”
“When the world sees my genius they will have to let me into Platinum,” he would say. “Then you will understand my greatness.”
Ever since he was ten years old, this is what Oro used to say. He had nothing to back up his claims of genius. He was only a kid. He was uneducated and was slow even when it came to doing simple tasks on the farm, but his dream was to one day be recognized as a great thinker. So that’s what he spent most of his time doing: thinking. It didn’t matter what he was thinking about. He just thought that’s what geniuses do.
