Ascension

subject was, well, rather more clever than I gave him credit for and in my haste to..ah, rectify, the situation I became infected with the series one strain. I had worked up two more series, which were supposed to be tested later, but with all this going on, I hadn't thought of trying them out. Until recently. Do you know how rare humanity is in this region? Trust me, there is nothing left alive for a hundred miles around here.' The doctor looked at Max, pausing for an overly long time.

Max intercepted another urgent message from halfway around the world. Chen, it seemed was winning.

'I was going to have some people brought up alive from Miami, there is a group of diehards, so to speak, holding out down there and I have a few camps set up in other states across the south too. Then I sensed your helicopters coming in. You're the first to arrive and I think, for winning that race, you deserve a prize. Don't you?'

Max nodded, 'I don't suppose you'd consider letting me complete my mission?'

Laughing the doctor said, 'Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor. It's all the better that you arrived here first. The others are still a good distance away; you beat them by a huge margin. With any luck I will know if the other series works out before they get here. And you brought a woman with you. I was going to use my maid for the series two test, but your soldier will work just as well.'

'No.' Max said.

'No? Well, really you came here to kill me. I should just convert you and send you down to Miami to weed out the resistance. I am giving you a chance to live again. Trust me; this is a very merciful gesture on my part. But I am a merciful god. If it works as it is supposed to you will not die. But I suspect it will give me some, well, control, as it were. An access into your mind that will allow me to use you to infect others and bring the living under my command as well as the dead. You get to live and be the living equivalent of what I am to the dead. You'll probably get the series three formula. Two should work properly; I think I'll give that to the woman. I work better with men and you seem easy enough to get alone with. Not like your brawny friend, he wouldn't even give me his name. So for working with me, you get the reward of, well, working with me forever. It is a glorious journey we have ahead of us Max. You, I, and the woman soldier.'

'You haven't spoken to her yet?' Max asked.

'Not yet. You're my second stop, she'll be the last one.'

'I didn't see Ruben at the wreck. Did the old coot die in the crash?' Max wondered.

Out loud he said, 'Well, the 'woman soldier' is a little cantankerous, I doubt she will be as cooperative as I am.' To himself Max thought, 'Stewart will do something, she'll figure out a way to stop him.'

'So I saw at the crash site. Don't worry, I can be very persuasive.'

'Why not just use me and see if this, uh, series three, works okay and skip her altogether?'

'I can learn from both series Max. I made incremental improvements in both.'

'But we still might die?' Max asked.

'That is, unfortunately, a possibility. Without a series two subject to study, I can't know if the adjustments I made with three were in the right direction. Oh, don't look so alarmed, at the very least you'll come back like I am. Probably.'

'Probably?'

'There is always risk Max. I will send in some helpers to prep you, please don't give them any trouble, they are under orders to prep you at any cost, and I want this done today, regardless of any broken bones you might suffer at their hands.'

The doctor left the room to be replaced by two very capable looking zombies pushing in a heavy steel gurney. Still using his half sight, he felt these two were at least the equal of Aubrey. 'Where the hell is she, anyway?' Max thought as the two approached and began unstrapping his restraints. Of course he fought anyway.

Chapter 40 — Katie

Katie was standing mauled and naked in the rubble; her fingers were broken, twisted things that resembled wriggling worms more than flanges. She shifted the rocks away from the street, just one zombie in a seemingly endless line, clearing out pieces of broken concrete and the odd corpse or broken bit of office furniture from the collapsed building. Two zombies, their eyes glaring at her in intense hatred, carried a squirming man dressed in cut off shorts and a t-shirt towards her from the end of the line. The two stopped in front of her and held the man steady while Katie tore into him. With each bite she healed, with each swallow her mind came back and she remembered what she was and the details of her fight with the zombie on the roof. She remembered she had been bitten several times by the zombie during the fight before the first shell landed on the roof.

Katie pulled away from the dying man, remembering enough to be disgusted and reject this unlife she had been gifted. 'Eat. Eat and forget.' Came the persistent voice inside her head.

Aubrey. The woman was buried in the rubble that Katie was clearing. The woman wanted Katie, wanted her functional. At first Katie thought it was for revenge, Katie had throat shot the woman and killed her partner Harry too. When Aubrey was finally revealed, a compact, ragged figure, so covered with dust that she resembled the concrete that was found covering her, revenge seemed imminent. The woman had sent Katie to stand inside one of the other downtown buildings, along with hundreds of other zombies. Katie thought maybe she would just end up being another wheel on the cog, forgotten.

But the living kept arriving like clockwork, a child here, someone old enough to be her grandparent there. All for Katie, all a constant reminder that she was not forgotten. The zombies around her were mindless dead, and stared only at the victims hungrily, held in check from ripping them apart only by Aubrey's will. The ones bringing her the food knew, they knew, but could not talk to her, just as Katie herself was compelled to remain silent as they held the victims in place.

Days went by, the feeding continued and Katie grew stronger. As much as the process disgusted her, she had hopes that Aubrey would go too far, that the woman would overfeed Katie and make her strong enough to break free from the bitch's shackles. Eventually Katie tried; she shrugged off the other woman and managed to race almost three steps before Aubrey's will re-asserted itself.

Soon after she was summoned to Aubrey's presence, what she saw along the way was not comforting. There were zombies that were very clearly not right. They looked like the intelligent kind, the fast ones who could talk, however, most were babbling incoherently. One was reciting what sounded like the Gettysburg address while walking into a wall. It would fall over, get back up, say another line from that historical document and walk into the wall again and then it would start over. Others were crying, one was using a piece of glass to cut its wrists to the bone. The wounds healed quickly, but not before spilling a black mess out of his veins, he had been at it a long time, given the size stain on the ground beneath him. Aubrey was not in a conference room, she held court in an empty street, surrounded by other super zombies.

The memories faded out and Katie found herself back in the pizza parlor. 'Now what was that daydream all about?'

'Katie, when did you last eat?' Randy asked her again. She looked around to see him standing beside her.

'Randy! Good to see you…' Katie faltered.

'You're dead Katie, you need to remember. Tell me what happened.'

'I…' Katie's world disappeared again, the pizza place fading in and out, with only Randy remaining beside her, a steady beacon, an anchor in the swirling chaos of time, places and memories.

Back on the street in Chicago Aubrey gestured behind Katie at the insane zombies, 'I've been experimenting and I think I just about have this down. I need to act now. It's sooner than I would like, but we can't always choose when to do what must be done, wouldn't you agree.'