The Dead Spore Collection, page 18
“Come on now, Tony, throw yourself into this game.”
He grinned and allowed his mind to let go, just like Joseph had shown him. He closed his eyes, trying not to think about the fact that he’d just closed his virtual eyes. This is mad enough to melt my head.
The fabricated scenario memories slammed into him. “This is intense!” he managed to gasp, before alien thoughts weaved through his familiar memories, rapidly expanding, until nothing remained but the name he was born with.
***
Tony Johnston slammed his back against the brick wall and scooped in a huge mouthful of foetid air into his burning lungs. He jerked his head back to where he’d just raced from, making sure that it hadn’t followed him again. He had to find somewhere to hole up, even if it was just for a couple of hours. His body couldn’t take much more of this punishment.
He casually brushed his hand down the sweat-stained, heavily muscled arm, wondering when he’d become so unfit. Not that long ago, Tony could have completed a food run without even breaking into a sweat.
Get out of my body!
Tony blinked, not too sure if he’d just heard something. He turned and peered over the blackened bricks, seeking out any building that looked remotely secure. Even a building with a door attached would have sufficed. The chance of him finding any wood in this blighted city was about as remote as finding an open burger van in the next street. Where the hell was he anyway?
“Does it really matter?” Tony found himself shaking his head to answer his own question. All the forgotten cities all looked the same anyway: streets of charred stone, with the occasional rusted vehicle to break up the monotony of grey. Oh, and shambling dead. He couldn’t forget those fuckers. The ruined buildings stretched on forever, “Why did I venture further into the city?”
He’d had no other choice but to attempt to lose his pursuers in here.
Ever since first light, the bastards had not drifted away from his scent. The fact that he’d actually woken up without finding a dozen bites on his body was a major miracle. What the fuck possessed him to lie down in the middle of that field? Just because the high grass made him invisible obviously didn’t mean that those dead things wouldn’t be able to smell him.
The shock of standing up this morning and finding hundreds of the bastards surrounding the field had almost stopped his heart. After somehow managing to evade the grasp of all those emaciated arms, losing them in the city seemed like the only logical choice.
“Yeah, because none of them would ever think to follow you in here Tony, you dumb bastard.” At least out in the country he could see them coming. In here, there could be one, three, or twenty of the bastards just waiting to pull him down behind the next ruined building.
Sure, he’d made a mistake, another one. Even so, Tony still didn’t know how the dead were managing to keep one step ahead of him. He’d put over a mile of distance between him and them before reaching the outskirts of the city. How were they able to get in here so quickly?
You had better keep my body alive, you off-world shit-raper.
He was alone now, though. For the first time in ages, he saw no undead fuckers anywhere in the vicinity. The welcome relief of their apparent absence slowly filtered through Tony’s system. Their unusual behaviour in here was really scaring the shit out of him. He couldn’t shake the feeling that those things were hunting him, like a pack of wild dogs stalking a small deer. “That’s stupid,” he muttered. Who had ever heard of any of them showing signs of coordinated activities? They operated by instinct alone, everybody knew that.
Why could he not shake the notion that no matter where he fled, that uneasy feeling of being watched would never leave him?
Tony clamped back on his musing when a pile of small stones tumbled down from the remains of a broken statue of a soldier riding a horse. His stomach lurched at the sight of three dead things appearing from around the corner of a grey, concrete tower block.
“That’s not fair!” he yelled. Tony couldn’t care less about them homing in on his voice. Just by watching them clamber over the rubble strewn across the road, they already knew where he was hiding. “Why can’t you give a guy a single break?”
His fingers curled around the barrel of the shotgun. Although he’d not found any shells for it in over a week, the weapon was far from useless. The solid wooden stock made a very effective club. “I’m not going to run from you this time,” Tony snarled, leaping over the wall and walking towards the three shambling corpses.
He stopped next to the rusted remains of a car. Gripped the barrel of the gun in both hands and waited for the dead things to shuffle closer to him. Tony focused his attention on the blond, long-haired zombie that had gained some distance over his two companions. It looked more alert than the other two. Tony lifted the gun above his head, watching in amazement as the blond-haired zombie lifted its head. “Fuck me, that’s a cool trick. I wonder what else you can do?”
Tony’s smirk fell away when recognition dawned. This was the same one who had almost caught him while he trying to get out of the field this morning. How had Tony not noticed that until now?
It’s one of the first ones! Run, you fucking retard. Turn around and get out of here. I don’t want to die when you go back to your other body.
It took another step, then halted. Tony gazed in disgust at the rotting green fabric hanging off the zombie’s thin frame. Beneath what remained of the shirt, he noticed a tight collection of circular holes just above the creature’s heart. This one had taken several gunshots already.
“Fuck you, bitch,” snarled Tony. “Your luck has just run out.”
The dead thing gazed at the other two who were now level with it before looking back at Tony. The jaw creaked open. “Honey,” it said. “Do you want two eggs with your bacon or just one?”
Tony sighed heavily and clapped his hands to deactivate the VR simulator. The constructed scenario dissolved into a mess of multi-colored pixels, leaving him standing in the middle of his recreation room. The blond male zombie morphed into his young wife, currently looking at him with a mixture of amusement and impatience etched on her face.
“You’ve been on that for over two hours,” she said, shaking her head. “Surely it can’t be that good.”
A huge blast of nausea crashed into his head when he turned. Tony squeezed his eyes shut and slowly counted to five, just like he’d been shown. When he opened them again, he found that the sickness was already leaving him.
“What the hell was that about?”
“Motion sickness,” he replied. “It’s nothing to be concerned about. Joseph did warn me that I’d feel a little queasy if I was suddenly pulled out of the sim.” He shrugged. “Don’t look at me like that, honey.” He looked into his wife’s intense blue eyes. “You did say that you’ll join me in the experience later tonight, Ellen. I’m holding you to that promise, you know. As for your initial question?” Tony laughed. “Good? It’s just incredible. Even the software’s implanted memories felt real.”
She leaned forward and brushed her lips across his. “I asked you about your breakfast, honey.”
Tony chuckled. “Sorry, I got a little carried away. Yes, Ellen, just how I like it.”
She paused. “So, it felt as though you were really there?”
He nodded. “Yeah, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.”
“If there are any pretty girls inside this thing of yours, I will not be happy with you, Tony.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Trust you to say that. Come on, let me show you, it’ll only take a few moments.”
“Later, Tony. You can show me your new toy tonight after work. Right now though, I want you to stop drooling and eat. You’ll be late.”
Tony stretched his legs, feeling the pleasant ache running through his lower muscles. Both his arms felt the same. He had trouble believing that this was still only the first part of the orientation program. He’d yet to even check out the combat sections. Tony really had been tempted to forgo all the training stuff and jump straight into the fun bit, but Joseph had warned him against that course of action, saying that he’d be dead within a few minutes. After what he’d gone through, Tony now saw his point.
He followed his wife out of the recreation room. “This new piece of software is going to save us both a fortune on credits and favours.” He chuckled. “Trust me on this.”
“I’m not sure how, honey. I know that you said we could use it to strengthen our skills, but I’m sorry if I seem a little sceptical.” She pointed to the framed picture of her latest certificate on the wall above their television. “Now, don’t get me wrong, honey. You of all people know how much I need to improve my talent. Coming in third in our district’s stand-off kill-zone competition just won’t cut it with the company.”
He shrugged. “Ellen, you’re the one who won’t put on the headset.”
“Yeah, I know that I’m casting doubt without even trying it out. Can you blame me though? I mean, think about it. Before the outbreak, the combined global community of computer geeks failed to get anything remotely looking like real life with their VR experiments. Yet, all of a sudden, your friend Joseph just happens to pull one out of his ass? The defence sessions are the only way for me to improve and you know it.”
“How’s your leg?”
Ellen followed his gaze down to her left ankle. “I’ll live,” she murmured, lifting her leg on the hallway step. She rolled up her dark blue leggings and pointed to a large bruise spread over her ankle. “It was your friend, Henry, who did that to me.”
“All the more reason why you should at least try out the device.” He rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute. If I remember correctly, Henry was trying to get you to the next safe zone. You’re the one who tripped up. He grabbed you before those three clamped contestants fell on you.” Tony sensed, judging by the way her glare was now drilling two holes into his forehead, that perhaps he should not have run off at the mouth.
“Now why did I know that you would leap to the defence of our district commander? There are moments like this when I seriously wonder if you’re married to me or him.”
“Come on, don’t be like that. Okay, so he’s my boss, but I wouldn’t leap to his defence. To be honest, I think he’s a bit of a dick.” He saw a slight smile creep onto her face. “Admit it, Ellen. We both have idiots for bosses.”
She giggled. “A good point. Saying that though, Rossini is a way bigger dick than your boss.”
Tony caught up with Ellen and wrapped his arms around her slender waist. “Believe me, honey. I’m only married to you. Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that my boss does have a cute ass, but yours is the only one that I want to caress.” He spun her around. "Honest."
His wife chuckled and wriggled out of his grip. "Just you wait until I explain to your boss that you have the hots for him."
He smiled back at Ellen, just thankful that his timely intervention had put a break on her imminent temper explosion. His muscles still ached. The last thing he needed this morning was his wife to start throwing household objects at him again.
She rolled her leggings back down to her ankle. “I just hope that the bruise will have faded in time for the party next week. I’m not going to wear slacks for anyone.” Ellen scowled at him. “Rossini’s wife has had her dress flown in, you know. Now that is just showing off.”
“It doesn’t matter where she got the dress from. She looks like a fat corpse and no dress can disguise that fact.”
He listened to her giggle whilst hurrying through the living room and disappearing into the kitchen. Tony got rid of his own smile and collapsed into his armchair. As soon as he shut his eyes, Tony found his thoughts drifting back to the simulation. When he was running through the deserted streets of that ruined city, there wasn’t much time to stop and gaze at the landscape, not when half a dozen zombies were trying their hardest to catch and eat him.
“Well I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” he muttered as the image of the wall that he’d taken shelter behind appeared at the front of his mind. As he stood up, Tony remembered the remains of what looked like an aircraft hangar just to the left of him. “It’s the old bus station!” This city was where he’d grown up. Tony vividly remembered waiting in that terminus many a night after finishing university.
It felt a little spooky to find himself running for his life in the ruins of the citystate where he’d spent his childhood. It was even stranger for him not to have noticed until after the fact. Tony sighed and shook his head. Why was it strange? After all, how can you stop to drink in the sights when you’re on the run from a horde of blood-crazed zombies?
Tony’s eyes snapped open. He took a deep shuddering breath and looked over to the kitchen. That was one thing that he hadn’t mentioned to his wife. It had felt real, that he couldn’t deny. What had impressed him more than anything was that there had been no sense of detachment involved. He wasn’t some outsider looking in. Tony had actually believed that the shit happening to him was real.
There was something else too; looking back, it felt as though he wasn’t the only one occupying that character’s body. Like he had a hitch-hiker? Or was it that he was the one who’d invaded that body? Tony quietly chuckled. Listen to him, actually thinking that digital scenario actually existed.
Still, the chances of the machine constructing a sequence involving another citystate, more to the point, one where he’d grown up, were astronomical. There must be thousands of areas programmed into the device, each one supposedly randomly selected.
He’d just have to ask Joseph when he arrived at work this morning.
Tony turned on the television. Early morning was the only time when he'd willingly watch anything. After midday, all those crappy programs that his wife was involved in started up. He'd rather scoop out his eyeballs with a spoon than subject himself to any of that crap. Even when it had been his district's turn to be highlighted for this year's contestants in Hunt the Stray, Tony still refused to tune in, despite the fact that it had been his darling wife who'd claimed the kill.
It took Tony a moment to pull his attention away from the pretty newsreader’s deep blue eyes and focus on the live pictures superimposed in the top corner of the dark blue background.
He felt a rare flush of excitement at the sight of one of the security force’s helicopters flying across the dead zone towards the huge wall of another citystate.
The feed switched to show Tony the cockpit. He grinned at the sight of another Citystate's huge boundary wall filling the helicopter’s view. The founders had kept their promise to expand past the walls after all. The helicopter flew over the wall and the camera panned down to show hundreds of reanimated corpses milling around several metal platforms that the forces must have dropped earlier. “You’re an idiot, Tony,” he whispered, chuckling. He found himself getting caught up with the action, forgetting most of this would be staged for the audience. The off-screen gasps and sighs from the camera crew just had to be staged. They made it look as though this was the first flight into chartered territory, the first brave souls venturing into an unexplored region.
The forces had probably been in this city for weeks before allowing the cameras inside.
A cold shiver travelled up his spine when the camera panned across the ruined city. This looked nothing like the citystate in the sim. Here, the vegetation had run riot. After four years, the colour running through the place was predominantly green. Weeds, shrubs, bushes, and small trees had taken root everywhere.
Three huge men protected by black armor abseiled down from the other helicopter and landed on the roof of the only visible building in there that looked more or less intact.
“Oh hell, you have got to be kidding me. Where have all the trees and grass gone?” Tony had run past that building not that long ago. He leaned closer to the TV screen, taking in all the details that the cameras had to offer. None of this made any sense, no way could this be just another coincidence. He felt fingers of ice caress his spine as the camera panned across the landscape, tracing his route from where he’d entered the city to where he’d awakened. “Am I fucking dreaming this?”
Tony forced his eyes away from the TV and looked over to the kitchen door. “Honey, come here a minute, there’s something that I want to show you!” He dug his fingers into the edges of the armchair, fully aware he was panicking.
“Jesus, hen,” cried his wife, rushing into the room. “What’s wrong?”
He pointed at the television screen, then watched in confusion as the camera swept across the broken skyline. “What the hell?” Tony looked at his wife. “It showed a different city a moment ago. I swear, the picture has just been switched.”
“Is this some sort of joke? If it is, you should put in some more work as I really don’t understand any of it.” She hurried back into the kitchen. “Sit back down, Tony,” she shouted. “Your breakfast is just about ready.”
He did as he asked, not exactly sure what had just happened there. “Maybe that’s another question to ask my boss,” he growled. He’d never mentioned anything about experiencing any possible side effects.
Tony looked up and gave Ellen a warm smile when she reappeared from the kitchen, carrying his tray. She gently placed it on his knees. “Thank you, honey,” he said, trying not to allow his eyes to drift back to the television. “This looks great.” The smell of the hot bacon was already making his mouth water. Even now, after six months, Tony still found it hard to wrap his head around the fact that he could actually enjoy this type of luxury almost every other day. Thanks to his wife’s recent pay upgrade, bacon was no longer one of the foods only enjoyed by the rich and privileged.
She nodded back. “You have no idea how much those eggs cost me, Tony.” She chuckled. “Who’d have thought that hen’s eggs are now rarer than hen’s teeth. Still, duck eggs are a decent enough substitute.” Ellen sat down beside him. “God, what a mess. It doesn’t look much like the arenas that we use in the defence sessions.”
