Zombies Ever After: Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse, Book 6 (43 page)

“I...I killed people?”

“Not at all. You were used to spread the disease. At this
point, I'd wager everyone has been exposed to it. And...once you
found Marty.” He seemed to be building up to something, but he
held it to himself.

He continued. “You have to understand this. I can't bring
you to this place. You have to find it yourself. To do that, there
must be three...um, let's call them inputs because I can't think of a
parallel. Three people tied together in both proximity and through
their emotions. You three have succeeded in that regard, where few
others have even tried. Your love for each other has emotionally
invested the three of you, and that energy is what has allowed Marty
to open this door.”

The door was ajar by about six inches.

“That's where I helped control the swimming zombie,”
she added. “There were blue dots and red dots, and such...”

“We just gave him a little nudge,” Al said while
passing through the doorway. “But that's because there was only
one of you. Now, we have the proper number.”

Liam walked into the room, feeling like he was in a dream. If he
was dead, which was still a real possibility, he couldn't figure out
why he put a dumpy-looking old computer on a table in the middle of
the control room he now entered. It looked like it was about a
hundred years old, and had a computer screen with plain green
characters on a black background.

Unable to ignore it, and sure it was the answer to whether he was
dead or alive, he walked right up to the terminal. A single line
flashed patiently at the top of the screen. On. Off. On. Off.

“Welcome aboard.”

3

“This, my heroic trio, is the payback for all your recent
suffering and trauma. It isn't actually the little computer you see
here. This is just what Marty sees in her mind when she thinks about
the word 'computer.'”

“Oh, Grandma,” Liam said with some humor. “You're
way behind the times.”

"This is why the waterfall is representing all the computers
in the world. It's hard for her to visualize such a complicated
system without using cosmic terminology."

"That makes perfect sense." He turned to Grandma.
"Computers aren't magic or outer-spacey. They're just a bunch of
bits and bytes and hard drives..." In just a few words, he'd
managed to hopelessly complicate things for her.

"Or, they could also be seen as one computer linked to a
waterfall of other computers." Her imagination had built this
place. He couldn't explain his feeling of disappointment. He imagined
how fantastic it would have been to be dead and have the universe at
his fingertips.

“So, how do we use this "waterfall" computer?”
Liam said. Turning to Al, “
Can
we use this?”

“Yes. All three of you can.”

He re-oriented on the terminal. “How?”

“You three have to touch it. It's the final physical link
which will confirm you three have access to what's inside. Marty
often speaks of miracles. This is the miracle. You three are the
first to figure it all out.”

Liam looked at the other two. Neither Grandma nor Victoria showed
any recognition at what they'd done. Al seemed to respond to their
doubt.

“Just touch the computer, please.”

Again, he looked at the others. Victoria remained still, but
Grandma moved closer to the console. She reached out to touch it. “Al
hasn't lied to me in all this time. I think we can trust him.”

“If it's good enough for Grandma, I'm in,” said
Victoria as she, too, reached out for the computer.

Al stood off to one side, a kindly smile on his face.

“Well,” Liam said with a deep sigh, “if this is
some kind of a trick, it's been pretty magnificent.”

“Not a trick,” Al said as Liam reached out his hand.

A series of words sounded in his head—like magic.

“System Boot: Standby for recognition sequence.”

It was a woman's voice. Friendly, but with a touch of a robotic
cadence.

“Liam Peters: Uploading.”

A picture emerged showing Victoria through his own eyes, as if he
were reliving a memory. He recognized the memory as it played on the
screen. It was just after they'd escaped St. Louis, on the third day
after the sirens. They had snuck away from Grandma, though she was
sleeping only a few feet away on the other side of the large Poplar
tree where they'd come to rest.

Liam was watching Victoria as she stood next to the tree. He knew
they were having a conversation, but that aspect of this memory
seemed to be secondary.

He could feel the emotion he was sensing at the time. His heart
was beating like a race horse. His palms were sweaty because Victoria
was boldly looking directly in his eyes.

“I was wondering if you could tell me more about the shadow
government?” Victoria asked that question, knowing Liam would
understand it was code for “kiss me you fool.”

In the memory, his heart was reaching an explosive crescendo. He
was feeling excitement wrapped with abject fear. A fear on a
different level than what he felt faced with all the zombies they'd
escaped. He understood at some level this emotion was stronger than
all those others.

And then he leaned in and kissed her passionately. It was their
first kiss. It was the first time he'd kissed a girl. He could sense
his emotion as it happened. Pure, amazing, joy.

Though she slept in the scene, the real Marty giggled with
childlike delight.

The kiss lasted a long minute. His emotions toward Victoria were
crushing him. Not love exactly, not yet anyway, but after all they'd
been through he knew he would do anything to protect the new girl in
his life. A promise he knew he'd kept since that kiss.

When they finished, he wanted to do it again immediately. Very
badly. But Victoria had taken him in and held him close and whispered
something in his ear. He admitted he'd forgotten all about it, as he
was so overwhelmed by what had just happened.

“Thank you for giving me a reason to live.”

The memory ended, causing Liam to instantly miss the powerful
emotions he'd just re-experienced. Would he ever have a similarly
powerful emotion with Victoria?

I hope so. I love Victoria. I crave that emotion only with her.

His thoughts, translated to words, showed up as green text on the
8088 computer from the relic pile.

“Aww, Liam. I love you, too. I remember that moment like it
was yesterday.”

His face burned red with embarrassment—Grandma just saw into
his private thoughts—but he felt pride that he'd helped
Victoria on that day and that they'd helped each other ever since.

The woman announced,“Status: Liam network is clean. One-half
of pair-bond network established.

“Thanks. I think,” he replied.

Wait. Pair what?

“Martinette Peters: Uploading.”

The next memory was Grandma's. He recognized her features even
though she appeared almost as young as him inside the memory. After a
brief ride in an old car—the memory knew it as a 1926 Model T
Runabout—Grandma sped up an alley until she arrived at her
small garage. It was the same alley and garage at the home she'd
lived in her entire life. The same one where he'd been staying this
summer.

“No, please. Not this,” the real Marty in the room
cried out.

Liam felt her fear.

“Marty, you must share this. Please,” said Al.

The memory never stopped. Liam wondered what could have his
grandma so agitated. She was usually cool on the stool.

Driving faster than he ever imagined her, she slung the car around
the corner of the garage and stood on the brakes. She was obviously
showing off, though no one else was around. Liam felt the thump of
something bang off the front. They all felt it. Grandma's emotions
assigned pain to that bump.

Grandma whimpered for a moment but seemed to catch herself.

“What is it, Grandma?” Nothing about it made any
sense. Did she run over her favorite bike? Did they have skateboards
back then? He ran through his own garage, imagining what would make
such a sound.

In the scene, young Marty froze as she climbed down from the
driver's compartment. Something on the floor had caught her eye.

“Impossible. It can't be,” young and old Marty said at
the same time. Liam felt the confusion, though he wasn't sure how, or
why.

Young Marty stalked toward the front of the car—willing
herself not to see what was there.

A tiny white shoe.

It broke Liam's heart to see the next few moments. Marty finally
made it to the front—and saw her little girl sprawled out on
the oily floor.

“I left her in her basket in the backyard so I could go for
a joy ride. I was only gone for a few minutes. Baby Victoria always
slept soundly. Something made her get up and go into that garage. I
never had a clue she was there.” Her voice was weak, but she
wasn't crying profusely, which was what he felt like doing now that
he felt her internal pain.

“Status: Martinette network is clean. Master controller for
triad established.”

Liam ignored the computer. “How did you go on, Grandma?”

“Prayer. Lots of prayer. It helped me, it really did.”

“I love you, Grandma,” Victoria said to her from
across the terminal.

“I love you, too, Victoria,” she said with her wink.

Liam realized there'd always been a connection between them, even
before he and her became more than just “apocalypse friends.”
Grandma had a daughter again, in a matter of speaking.

“Victoria Hennessey: Uploading.”

Liam wondered what the system would show of the girl he'd come to
know and love over the last several weeks. It appeared to be taking
emotional memories from each of them.

Liam frowned when he saw the first images. He imaged it would be
his face. Instead, it was a significantly older boy—a young
man.

Victoria's emotions are a stormy sea upon seeing the face.

Love. Distrust. Confusion.

“Victoria I love you, let's seal the deal tonight.”

Fear.

Liam noted it was real fear, not the giddy fear he felt when
trying to kiss her for the first time.

“I'm sorry Darby, you know my parents wouldn't approve,”
she laughs nervously, desperate to get his train of thought on
something else.

“But do you approve?” He smiles widely, but his eyes
are cagey.

Something unsettling passes through Victoria's mind.

Exposure. Lost. Alone.

Victoria looks at her surroundings. She is in a truck with the
young man, in a remote part of a dense forest.

“We passed the Ranger station back there a ways. Maybe we
could get directions.”

She was near home, in Colorado, but she was also adrift in the
middle of the ocean. She had made the suggestion, but her heart knew
it would fall on deaf ears.

The next several minutes were a blur. Victoria purposely fogged
over it.

Betrayal. Sin. Evil. Embarrassment. Fear.

Liam felt them all.

“Don't worry
Vicky
, now we'll be together forever.
We're promised," he said while holding her hand and pointing to
the Promise Ring he'd given her. "That's as good as married.”
He took a deep drag on a cigarette in the darkness of the back seat
of his big pickup truck. Her memory focused on the evil look in his
eyes, revealed by that tiny red fire.

Again, Liam expected her to break down at the imagery, but as
Grandma before her, she faced her memory with calm once she knew she
couldn't control it.

The memory skipped to something else.

“What. The. HELL!”

In that flash, he saw his own face after he'd just run over
Victoria's hand with Grandma's wheelchair. It was the first time
they'd met. He secretly hoped her first emotion on seeing him would
be true love, but what showed on the screen was much better.

It said, “Not Darby.”

The memories ceased as suddenly as they began. The computer was
just an old box again.

The digital voice started up. “Status: Altered virus has
been purged. Victoria network is clean. Remaining half of pair-bond
network established.”

A second line was added to the green and black computer screen.
Like the first, it sat near the top and flashed on and off in rhythm
with its mate.

“Network: Access Pending. Physical terminal awaiting input.”

4

“This is the end, Marty, Liam, and Victoria. The end, for
me.”

“You're leaving us?” Grandma replied.

“Well, I was never here,” he replied with a smile.
“But you don't need me anymore. My role was to find an
appropriate trio with the qualities necessary to unlock the
mainframe. It requires a human pair-bond and a complimentary elder,
or controller, to guide them. This is how the network was designed
before it was corrupted. Three is an important concept in this
computer system. First, your triad must open the gate—if we can
call this place a gate—and then, after the pair-bond has
produced a suitable offspring, a new triad is formed. The elder is
replaced by the child.”

“But I have other elders,” Liam began. He didn't
finish his thought because he couldn't be sure anyone was left alive.

“And so do I,” Victoria continued firmly.

“Of course. And if you had traveled with a different elder,
this equation of emotional bonds might be different. I found Marty
first because the Quantum Virus is both pure and mature inside her.
That's why she could access her memory with such precision, and it's
why she kept the two of you—and others—from getting
infected by the corrupted version of the virus—the zombie
plague, as you call it.”

“So, it's a helpful virus?”

Al looked at Victoria very seriously, as if deciding whether to
respond.

“Only now, at the infancy of the medical advances of modern
medicine and sub-atomic microscopy has humanity learned about this
evolutionary virus. The most salient point with regard to Marty is
that it requires approximately 100 years before it matures. For most
of history, humans died before they were thirty...”