Machines of the Dead (5 page)

The woman in the room was walking toward the glass now, toward Puffy Suit. 

“And today’s date?”

Jack, thinking, then
said,
“November 12th. What’s next, you want to know the year?”

The woman in the room was closer now.

“It’s the 15th of November. You’ve been unconscious for three days.
”

“What?” Jack asked shocked, and turned to meet the doctor’s eyes.

“We took you from your apartment three days ago.”

“What about Jess? I know you took her too.”

“
That
is true,” Reynolds said, then motioned to the window. Jack moved his gaze from the man to the window.

Puffy Suit had his forearm out in front of him again, readying for it to be attacked. The woman was close now, her face clearly visible. She looked barely alive, face gaunt, eyes sunken in
,
and flesh
,
the color of a cadaver’s. Her eyes were lifeless, chin covered in red. What Jack thought was a pattern on the fabric
;
he now knew was blood.
All over
the blood-covered gown were holes and rips
,
as if someone had
gone
at her with some kind of implement or weapon.

The corpse-like woman looked familiar. Jack shook his head, refusing to admit it. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want it to be. But it was his wife, Jess. She looked dreadful, malnourished and ailing, but at least she was still alive.

“Jess,” he shouted. “Baby.”

“She can’t hear you, Mr. Warren.”

Jack was teary eyed, shaking. “She looks terrible. What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s dead, Mr. Warren. Your wife’s dead.”

“Don’t say that; don’t you say that. You took us for a reason. You can save her.”

The doctor stood. “No, I can’t. She’s already dead.”

“She’s right there,” Jack said, motioning with his head, as if the doctor couldn’t see her. “What are you saying?
That
there’s no cure?”

“There is no cure for death, at least not in the way you would want.”

“I don’t understand. She’s right there, alive.”

The woman was biting the man’s arm again, viciously trying to get at his flesh.

Jack watched as Dr. Reynolds leaned down and spoke into the microphone. “Shoot it.”

“No!” Jack shouted, struggling with all his might to get free. “I’ll kill you; I swear it. I’ll kill you if you lay a hand on her.”

Puffy Suit pulled out a handgun, pointed it at Jess’ chest and fired three times. Her gown fluttered in the front and back as the bullets entered and exited her desiccated body. As if nothing had happened, she continued to gnaw away at the man’s arm.

Jack’s mouth fell open.

“Your wife is not alive, Mr. Warren. She is a husk, a non-thinking, non-feeling bag of flesh and bones, controlled by microscopic machines in her brain.”

This was all too much for Jack. He didn’t understand what was happening. He just wanted to be with his wife. To go back to their apartment, lie on the couch, and feel each other’s heat. 

“Jack?” the doctor asked. “Jack?”

Jack closed his eyes. “I need a minute.” Sadness turned to anger, a boiling rage building within him. He needed to hurt someone. Anyone. Opening his eyes, he began to scream, fighting like a wild man to be free, but the bonds held strong. After a minute of relentless struggle, he relaxed, the anger gone. Sadness returned and he began to cry.

Chapter 5

A day after finding out the truth about his wife, Jack had her body put to rest. The doc had wanted to keep Jess’ corpse active
to study her
,
but Jack insisted otherwise. The guards were bringing in countless undead
,
the city having an endless supply of subjects
,
so there were and would be, plenty of other subjects. 

Jack watched through the window as his wife stood, blood-covered and bullet-ridden, in the center of the room, head hanging low like some kind of ragged, old doll
that
no one wanted. Dr. Reynolds had explained this, saying that the nanobots were conserving their power, hence conserving the rotting of the flesh.
As
of now, the nanobots were not able to repair the dead flesh, but he feared that could change. The bots were programmed to adapt, to figure out new ways to heal.
However,
that was all theory
,
since it had only been
tested in a living body.

Jack wanted to be the one to take revenge on the bots. It was silly, but hitting the button that filled the room with electromagnetic energy felt like a small victory
,
justice for his wife.

Now she could rest in peace.

Over the next week, he came to grips with his new world, a world that made little sense, and a world without Jess in it.

Dr. Reynolds had been working on a
top-secret
military project, code-named: ENHANCE. Microscopic robots, or nanobots, would be injected into a soldier, enhancing the soldier’s ability to heal and remain alert. Using some of the healthy tissue already in the body, along with consumed proteins and amino acids, the bots would repair any damage a soldier received as long as the soldier was alive. Any damage sustained
from a small cut, healing within minutes, to a missing limb, taking a few days
,
would be re-grown or repaired. The only drawback was the amount of energy required to sustain the human body while the bots were active within it. So far, the bots required too much energy, causing the individual that was injected with them to have severe hunger pains, needing to eat immediately or the bots would start to take away flesh from the host body, breaking down healthy cells, ultimately leading to organ shutdown and death.

Dr. Reynolds hadn’t been able to get pas
t
the issue of energy requirement and was still working on the problem
,
when Derek Mayfield escaped. Somehow, when the man went around biting people,
he had
spread the bots to them. The bots quickly began to multiply, using healthy tissue in order to do so. Without the immediate ingestion of food, there simply wasn’t enough energy to sustain the bots’ activity in a human body for more than a day without the body dying.
However,
even after an individual was deceased, the bots were somehow able to remain active, animating the body and sending it in search of food, that food being human flesh.

As with Jack’s case, he was infected with the ENHANCE nanobots when his wife bit him. After being brought back to the bunker, Dr. Reynolds allowed the bots to repair Jack’s wounds, growing his fingers back while at the same time
,
intravenously feeding him copious amounts of protein. When he was fully repaired, Jack’s body was hit with an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, frying all the bots into harmless, crispy little critters that the body would discard as waste.

Dr. Reynolds was working on a way to fix the problem. With the bots acting so quickly, killing people once they were inside, there really was no way to save the living-infected
,
unless said infected was immediately cared for within a day or less. A shock from 50,000 volts or more, or an electromagnetic pulse, would destroy the bots in the human body, allowing the person to survive.

In order to stop a member of the undead, the corpse should be treated the same as a living person, with electricity, or by destroying the brain
, which was
the bots command center.

Cut off from the outside world, Dr. Reynolds was now working on a way to get the bots to work in the human body as originally planned
,
without the negative side effects, and in turn, find a solution to the problem. As it looked, millions of Manhattan’s citizens were dead, or “undead” as the reanimated corpses were termed, and highly contagious. Dr. Reynolds’ only hope was to find
some kind of mass solution to the bots;
a way to help the uninfected
,
the survivors. If not, he feared the military in order to contain the epidemic, would detonate a nuclear bomb, incinerating the city and everything in it.  

In the meantime, Blackhawk helicopters patrolled the airways while military gunboats patrolled the waters. Bridges and tunnels were closed, blocked off by military personnel and their equipment. Anyone attempting to leave the city was shot on sight. Shortly after the massacre on the Brooklyn Bridge—hundreds of citizens mowed down by machine gun fire for attempting to leave the city—a citywide media blackout had occurred. Somehow, the government had cut off all communication to the outside world, including cell phone
,
internet
,
and radio transmissions. Electricity was still running, at least for the time being, and Manhattan was on its own. 

The bunker where Jack was being held was built five stories below the streets of the city, and exactly below the apartment building that he and Jess had been living in.
A team of scientists and armed, military-trained guards were at
the doctor’s disposal. Since Derek Mayfield’s escape, the good doctor had tightened security, arming the guards with weapons from the bunker’s arsenal and deactivating the card readers at both exits. Only he and one other person, Guard Commander Roger Chambers, had the code to activate the doors leading to the outside world.

The bunker was designed to be self-sustaining for a time of one year with
the current staff, plus a few unforeseen extras like Jack. Non-perishable food and drink were kept in storage, along with a small armory of weapons, and antibiotics.

Before the media blackout had occurred, Jack sat in his room watching the news, day and night, unable to do much of anything else
,
except
to
think about Jess, crying hysterically at times. He was the only non-employee in the bunker; everyone else was there to work, helping in one way or another to find a solution. He couldn’t believe the
un
dead
were walking the streets, attacking people.
Yet
,
the massacre on the Brooklyn Bridge
was what
made him literally puke. He had witnessed
the event
on live television, the scene replaying itself in his mind for days afterward
,
even in his dreams.

Before the blackout, people were told to stay in their homes and wait until the situation could be resolved, yet food
drops were scheduled throughout the city. Riots broke out as people fought over food and water. The number of undead grew, patrolling the streets like untiring guards. People no longer wanted to leave their homes, and the food that was dropped went to waste. The few that did try for the rations, usually wound up as
a meal
for the undead.

To Jack, the world looked
as if
it had ended.

Chapter 6

When Jack wasn’t learning about the bots, the city’s condition, or plans on possible solutions, he spent most of his time alone in his room. A few of the guards acted decent to him, giving him the time of day and chatting about life. Kevin Meyers, a twenty-three year old kid, was one of Jack’s favorites. Hardened in battle, the kid was still human, and seemed much more apprehensive about his stay in the lab than the other guards. Bottom line: he was worried.

“We’re all scared, Kevin,” Jack told him, during breakfast.

“I’m really glad you’re here, Mr. Warren.” The kid leaned in, whispering. “These other guys, they’re real hard asses. Made for this shit. It’s good to have someone I can talk
with
.”

Jack smiled. “Same here, Kevin. I’m no warrior; never served in the armed forces. And I hated science in college. All I have is downtime. I can get into a good book or movie, but it only lasts so long. I feel alone here. Reynolds has been great, but he’s under a lot of pressure, busy all the time. It really is good talking with you. And if you ever have any problems or concerns, or you’re afraid to talk to anyone, please come to me.”

“I will, Mr. Warren.”

“Call me, Jack. Believe it or not, I’m not much older than
you are
. I’m 35, not 50.”

“Okay, Jack,” the kid said, smiling.

“You miss your family?”

Kevin nodded.

“Me too.”

“Sorry about your wife.”

“Thank you. I miss her every second of every day.”

A few moments of awkward silence filled the air between them before Kevin spoke up.

“Do you know about the plan to nuke the city?” Kevin asked, keeping his voice low. 

Jack put his head down for a moment. “Yes.” 

“We can’t let that happen. How would we as a nation survive such a thing? I mean, how are we going to survive what’s already happened
?
Millions of people are dead, walking around, looking for a bite of human flesh.”