“She is nearly invincible,” says Dr. Chan.
Vine sees the helicopter landing on the far side of the parking lot, as raindrops trickle onto his head. He removes his goggles to see more clearly.
“Now’s your chance,” Xiu’s voice tells him. “You can use your wires to get there before the other contestants. But first you need to get the works of art. You must complete the mission.”
Vine cuts away a row of zombies with his wire. Then he scans the edge of the hospital for the paintings.
“There they are,” says Xiu’s voice.
Vine sees them on the ground, next to his Head’s corpse. “Use your wires to get over there.”
Raising his left hand up, he shoots a wire at the roof of the hospital and is pulled up into the air.
As he soars above the shambling corpses, Xiu’s voice tells him, “You don’t have much time. Grab the paintings and get to the helicopter.”
Nemesis throws her double-bladed sword at Vine as he flies toward the building. The blade hits his left arm, cuts it off at the elbow. Vine falls. He watches as his left arm continues on without him, pulled by the wire up to the rooftop.
Before Vine’s body falls, Nemesis races through the undead, catches her sword as it boomerangs back to her, and then slices the merc punk through the midsection just before he hits the ground.
Nemesis turns her attention to Mr. T. She runs through the parking lot, flying at him like a bullet. Mr. T sees her coming. He charges at her.
“Time for round two,” Mr. T yells.
Corpses tumble from their path as they plow toward each other. Mr. T’s feet crush the ground with every step. Nemesis runs so fast her flesh becomes a white blur.
Mr. T throws his punch, with all of his weight behind it. Nemesis catches his punch, thin white claws wrapped around his golden knuckles, then she buries her sword deep into his metal chest. Sparks explode between them, oils and wires spill out of his abdomen.
“Think that’s enough to stop Mr. T?” yells the cyborg.
As his mouth is open, Nemesis spits a green fluid down his throat. She rips out her sword and watches as he falls to his knees, choking, holding his neck in his metal hands.
Her black eyes glare at him as he curls into the mud, beneath the pouring rain.
“You see?” Dr. Chan says to Wayne, from the control room. “She’s invincible. There’s nobody who can stop her now.”
Wayne looks carefully at the cyborg contestant as he writhes on the ground. “What is that she sprayed in his mouth?”
“A concoction I brewed up,” says Dr. Chan. “It is a mixture of snake venom and a hyper-accelerated variety of the zombie virus.”
“Zombie virus?”
“Yes,” the doctor smiles. “Specimen #5 isn’t just part reptile. She is also part leopard, part hammerhead, part spider, and part zombie.”
“Part zombie…” Wayne says, staring at the screen.
“She can only infect a human using her venom,” says the doctor. “But it moves faster through the nervous system and creates a more powerful zombie.”
Wayne turns his head slowly to the doctor. “Why on earth would you give her such an ability?”
“I gave it to her…” The doctor looks back at the producer. “So that in any combat scenario…” He pauses to steal one of Wayne’s chocolate donuts. “She would always win.”
As Junko and Scavy battle the zombies back-to-back, the roof below them finally gives way. It breaks open, dropping half of the undead down to the level below. The ground beneath Scavy goes with it and he falls.
With one arm, Junko catches him by the wrist.
Scavy looks up. “What are you doing?”
“You drew the long straw,” Junko says, holding him with her left arm. With her other arm, she chainsaws the zombies coming in from behind. “You need to get to the helicopter.”
The zombies on the floor below reach up for Scavy’s boots. He kicks the skeleton hands away. Then looks back up at Junko.
Scavy shakes his head. “Fuck the straws. Let me go. You have to catch up to that hippy bitch before she gets away.”
“Not a chance,” Junko says, pulling him up with all of her strength. “I’m going to make sure you’re the one who gets on that helicopter. We had a deal.”
As she pulls Scavy up by her left arm, a zombie grabs her chainsaw. It bites down into her wrist. She screams out and nearly drops Scavy, as a chunk of meat is pulled out of her arm. She thrashes the chainsaw until it cuts the zombie away from her.
“Let me go,” Scavy says.
But it’s too late for her to back out now. She continues pulling him up. Another zombie bites into her shoulder. Another bites her on the thigh. Junko squints her Asian eyes tightly to resist the pain, as she gets the punk back onto the roof. Once he’s safely on his two feet, Scavy turns around and cuts the zombies away from her in one clean stroke. Scavy fires his shotgun at them, blasting their knees out of their legs.
When Scavy looks over at Junko, he sees the bleeding wounds on her body.
“You’ve been bit?” Scavy asks.
Junko’s face grows solemn. “It’s okay. You’re the one who drew the long straw. Let’s get you to the helicopter.”
Scavy can see a look of disappointment behind her eyes. Even though she wasn’t planning on getting on the helicopter while Scavy was alive, he can sense that she had really wanted to go. She had a mission to go back to the island and take her revenge on Wayne “the Wiz” Rizla. Now she would have to stay back, and let Wayne get away with sentencing human beings to death for the sake of amusement, for the sake of money. Scavy knows this is why she is disappointed. She had told him all about what she would do if she won the contest.
“Junko,” he said to her, looking her seriously in the eyes. “Don’t worry. If I’m the one who gets back to Neo New York I won’t let that motherfucker get away with this anymore. I’ll kill his ass and shit. For you.”
Junko smiles at him, like he’s a kid who just said the cutest thing. Then she kisses him on the cheek, in the one spot that isn’t horribly burned.
“Let’s get you on that helicopter,” she says.
Then she revs her chainsaw arm and cuts them a path through the zombie horde.
Mr. T squirms on the ground as the virus pumps through his blood and circuitry. Fat green veins pulse up his neck and face. His eyes become bloodshot. He looks over at Nemesis as she walks slowly toward the hospital.
“Mr. T’s down,” says the cyborg, as he pulls himself to his feet. “But that don’t mean he’s out.”
Nemesis turns and whips her sword at him. Mr. T catches in midair. Then breaks it in half against his knee.
“Enough with the toys,” he says. “The T-2000’s not playin’ anymore.”
He charges her and leaps into the air. Before he reaches her she flies at him, and kicks him in the chest. He flies across the parking lot, smashing through the zombie crowd. Torsos explode on impact, spraying black goo into the air, as Mr. T’s metal body hits the undead.
Wiping zombie guts from his eyes, Mr. T gets up and charges again. This time when Nemesis kicks him, he grabs her by the leg and smashes her against a smart-car as it drives toward the hospital. Then he tosses her across the parking lot, through the undead masses.
Vine crawls across the ground, holding in his guts as blood and intestines spill out of his deep wound. When zombies come at him, he gets up on one knee, and using his one remaining arm he shoots the wire through their heads. The zombies stagger after him as he crawls, crowding up around him.
